Time Line 1866 to 1894

Reverse history version: Recent Victorian History

Designed for a Space:1889v1 setting with historical divergence after 1866.

Organization is by Day and Month if known. Items dated to just a year follow the more exact monthly listing.

IRL used in comments is "In Real Life'.

Known additions from Frank Chadwick's original Space:1889v1 timeline have a blue text and will will only interleave in the real date section if a specific date was given.

RBT game specific additions will be in purple text. Some IRL events are commented if game changes may make them obsolete.

Updates include Wikipedia Space:1889 article and additional historical data reference from web sources.

credit: Based on Maateen Greenway's original timeline.

1866

12 January - The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London.

2 March - 1st US company to make sewing needles by machine incorporated, Conn

28 March - 1st ambulance goes into service

7 May - German premier Otto Von Bismarck seriously wounded in assassination attempt.

14 June - 23 August. The Seven Weeks’ War was an armed conflict between Austria and Prussia. The war was fought for control over the 39-state German Confederation, following the unsatisfactory conclusion of the Convention of Gastein (1865). The speed of victory demonstrated the effectiveness of the Prussian military system.

10 July - Indelible pencil patented by Edson P Clark, Northampton, Mass.

21 July - Cholera epidemic kills hundreds in London

27 July - Atlantic telegraph cable successfully laid (1,686 miles long)

21 September - H.G. Wells was born

2 October - J Osterhoudt patents tin can with key opener

1866-1868 - Captain Nemo begins his campaign of destruction against the warships of the British Empire using the submarine Nautilus. The Nautilus caused many ships to sink by ramming them. In fact Nemo is Latin for "no one" and the real name of this mysterious individual is unknown. The impression is that Nemo was an anarchist philosopher rebelling against what he sees as the repressive governments of the world. He has also supplied gold to people on the island of Crete who are fighting for independence from Turkey. He is also a scientific genius who roams the depths of the sea in his submarine, the Nautilus, which he helped build on a deserted island. Nemo tries to project a stern, controlled confidence, but he is driven by a thirst for vengeance, and wracked by remorse over the deaths of his crew members and even by the deaths of enemy sailors. He eschews dry land having forsworn all ties with it, and when he does step on it, does so only when the land is uninhabited, such as with Antarctica and desert islands such as Lincoln Island. He, is quite enamored by the sea and holds that true freedom exists only beneath the waves. In keeping with his detestation for the nations of the surface he uses no products that are not marine in nature, be it food, clothing, furnishing or even, tobacco.

1867

3 February - Prince Mutsuhito, 14, becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan (1867-1912).

8 February - The Ausgleich results in the establishment of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.

14 February - Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co issues 1st policy.

17 February - 1st ship passes through Suez Canal.

16 March - First publication of an article by Joseph Lister outlining the discovery of antiseptic surgery, in The Lancet.

30 March - William H. Seward, secretary of state under U.S. President Andrew Johnson, signed the Alaska Purchase, a treaty ceding Russian North America to the United States for a price—$7.2 million—that amounted to about two cents per acre.

1 April - International Exhibition opens in Paris

12 June - Austro-Hungarian Empire forms

19 June - The archduke of Austria and emperor of Mexico, a man whose naive liberalism proved unequal to the international intrigues that had put him on the throne and to the brutal struggles within Mexico, Maximilian, was executed by a firing squad.

20 June - US President Andrew Johnson announces purchase of Alaska

1 July - Dominion of Canada established on this day in 1867, with the British North America Act, the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada were united as the Dominion of Canada, and the province of Canada was separated into Quebec and Ontario.

16 July - D R Averill patents ready-mixed paint

16 July - Joseph Monier patents reinforced concrete

30 September - Midway Islands formally declared a US possession

25 November - Alfred Nobel patents dynamite. Swedish chemist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel is remembered for his invention of dynamite and for the endowment of the Alfred Nobel Foundation that awards prizes annually in a number of categories. Nobel had sought a safe way to handle the highly volatile nitroglycerine in industry, so he mixed nitroglycerin with kieselguhr to produce dynamite, a safer explosive, which he patented in 1867. He went on to develop gelignite in 1875 and a smokeless form of gunpowder, named ballistite, in 1887.

26 November - Refrigerated railroad car patented by JB Sutherland of Detroit

28 December - United States claims Midway Island, the first territory annexed outside Continental limits.

Karl Marx published Das Kapital. Das Kapital, one of the most influential treatises of the 19th century, represents a key analysis of the capitalist system. In it, the German philosopher and political author Karl Marx introduced the idea of “surplus value”; the concepts of class struggle and the exploitation of the working class; and the prediction of socialism’s victory over capitalism. Further volumes were published in 1885 and 1894.

Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, defined communism. In the Communist Manifesto, which they wrote and published themselves in London in 1848, Marx and Engels portrayed the natural evolution of a communist utopia from capitalism. This revolutionary theory added fuel to the social struggles that characterized Europe during the latter half of the 19th century. Marx theorized that competition among capitalists would force more and more of them to be enveloped by the growing masses. A proletarian dictatorship would rule until all vestiges of capitalism had been eliminated; a communist utopia would then naturally emerge. Marx and Engels founded the International Workingman’s Association in 1864 to actively advocate their position and consider ways to speed the process.

The United States Geological Survey established.

1868

29 February - 1st British government of Disraeli forms.

5 March - Stapler patented in England by C H Gould.

12 March - Henry O'Farrell attempts to assassinate Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh.

23 March - University of California founded (Oakland California).

6 April - The Japanese emperor Meiji issued the Charter Oath, which served to modernize the country during the Meiji Restoration.

16 May - The first of two key votes was held in the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson, who was ultimately acquitted of all charges.

2 June - Captain Nemo's submarine the Nautilus goes down in the Maelstrom, a large whirlpool off the coast of Norway.

10 June - Serbian Prince Michael III was assassinated, derailing the Balkan League's plans for a coordinated rebellion against the Ottomans and destroying the league.

11 October - Thomas Edison patents his 1st invention: electric voice machine

15 October - Captian Nemo is said to have died, on board the Nautilus, at Dakkar Grotto under Lincoln Island in the South Pacific. The last rites were administered by Cyrus Harding, one of the castaways on the island who had been saved by the Captain himself, and the ship then submerged into the waters of the grotto.

3 November - Ulysses Grant (R) wins US presidential election over Horatio Seymour (D)

9 December - 1st British government of Gladstone forms

10 December - The first traffic lights are installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

December - Opening of the first section of the Metropolitan District Railway from South Kensington to Westminster (now part of the District and Circle Lines) in London.

Sir Edward Frankland, a British chemist, is credited, together with British astronomer Sir Joseph Lockyer, with the discovery of helium as a separate element. They undertook research into the spectrum of the Sun, identifying helium as a chemical element in its own right, whereas hitherto it had been viewed as a line in the spectrum. Frankland is perhaps better known for his development of the theory of chemical valency.

Life discovered at 2,400 fathoms depth, disproving earlier theories of life not existing below 300 fathoms.

Sir Clements Markham of the British India Office organized a botanical expedition in 1858 to obtain seeds of the Cinchona tree for cultivation in India. The bark of the Cinchona tree is the best source of Quinine, the cure for Malaria. The botanist Richard Spruce collected for several years in south-western Ecuador and in 1860 seeds and plants were sent to both India and Kew Gardens in London. This was still at a time when local people kept the location of the trees a secret. The first plants sent to India in 1861 from Kew died, but later plantations in Travancore and Sikkim, and in Sri Lanka were successful. About the same time seeds, originally collected by Charles Ledger in Bolivia in 1864 and bought by the Dutch from an Australian in a private sale in London, were sent to Java. From these some 12,000 seedlings were produced; these were plants of Cinchona calisaya, which has a higher content of quinine than Cinchona pubescens grown by the British. In 1864 India and Java exchanged planting material.

First working ether flyer mechanism demonstrated by Thomas A. Edison.

1869

6 March - Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. Dmitry Mendeleyev’s periodic table was constructed on the basis of the periodic law, which he formulated in 1869. The law stated that the chemical properties of the elements depend on their relative atomic masses. Therefore, in the table the elements were arranged by their related groups by atomic numbers. Mendeleyev formulated a second, improved, version of his table in 1871. His Principles of Chemistry (1868-1870) became a classic. German chemist Julius Lothar Meyer independently formulated the periodic law and a table of elements in Die modernen Theorien der Chemie (Modern Chemical Theories), published in 1864.

6 April - 1st plastic, Celluloid, patented

9 April - Hudson Bay Company cedes its territory to Canada

10 May - Completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad in the USA. Joining of the rails linking the Central and Union Pacific Railroads at Promontory Summit, Utah. CPRR's "Jupiter" engine on the left, UPRR's engine "No. 119" on the right. "One of the classic icons of American imagery."

Less well known is that Dr. Arliss Loveless tried to disrupt the event and kidnap President Ulysses S. Grant using a giant mechanical spider. Whilst his attempt was foiled by two unknown Federal agents President Grant was unable to attend the joining ceremony.

30 July - The Charles, considered the world’s first "oil tanker", departs from the United States headed for Europe with a bulk capacity of 7,000 barrels of oil

24 September - Black Friday; Wall St panic after Gould & Fisk attempt to corner gold

17 November - Suez Canal Opened. The Suez Canal (Arabic: transliteration: Qana al-Suways), is a large artificial canal in Egypt, west of the Sinai Peninsula. It is 163 km (101 miles) long and 300 m (984 ft) wide at its narrowest point, and runs between Port Said (Bur Sa'id) on the Mediterranean Sea, and Suez (al-Suways) on the Red Sea. The canal allows two-way water transportation, most importantly between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before its opening in 1869, goods were sometimes offloaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The canal comprises two parts, north and south of the Great Bitter Lake, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea. Providing a shortcut for ships from the Mediterranean Sea to ports in east Africa, the Middle East, and India; The canal was designed by Vicomte Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, a French diplomat and engineer. The Canal was officially inaugurated by Khedive Ismail in an extravagant and lavish ceremony. French, British, Russian, and other Royalty were invited for the inauguration which coincided with the re-planning of Cairo. A highway was constructed linking Cairo to the new city of Ismailia, an Opera House was built, and Verdi was commissioned to compose his famous opera, "Aida" for the opening ceremony. Ironically, Verdi did not complete the work in time and "Aida" premiered at the Cairo Opera a year later. Ferdinand de Lesseps was born on November 19, 1805 in Versailles, France. His Family was long distinguished in the French diplomatic service. At age 19, having studied law, he was appointed eleve-counsel to his uncle, then the French ambassador to Lisbon. He served in Tunis later with his father, until 1832 the year of his fathers death. Then came 7 years in Egypt, later Rotterdam, Malaga, Barcelona and Madrid. With the new Viceroy Mohammed Said in Egypt, whom de Lesseps had befriended years ago, he rushed to Cairo and soon the construction of the Suez Canal under his command began. November 17, 1869 the Gran Opening with luxuries ceremonies, a Cairo opera house had been built for the occasion and Verdi had been commissioned to write Aida. De Lesseps became a hero presented with many decorations. De Lesseps was granted a "firman" or decree by the khedive Said of Egypt to run the Canal for 99 years after completion. De Lesseps died in France in 1894.

23 November - In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched - one of the last clippers ever to be built, and the only one still surviving to this day.

1869 - 1870 First Vatican Council Ecumenical council convened by Pope Pius IX which took place in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The council defined papal primacy of jurisdiction and formulated the controversial doctrine of papal infallibility in constitutions Dei Filius and Pastor Aeternus.

Joseph Lockyer founded Nature journal.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) discovered. DNA was first isolated by Friedrich Miescher who, in 1869, discovered a microscopic substance in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. As it resided in the nuclei of cells, he called it "nuclein".

1870

February 3 - The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race and intending to ensure, with the Fourteenth Amendment, the civil rights of former slaves.

March - Robert Maitland Brereton, a British engineer was responsible for the expansion of the Indian peninsula railway from 1857 onwards. In March 1870, he was responsible for the linking of both the rail systems, which by then had a network of 6,400 km (4,000 miles).

31 March - Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, became the first African American to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

June 21 - Tientsin Massacre occurs in Tientsin, China. This was a violent outbreak of Chinese xenophobic sentiment, that nearly precipitated international warfare and signaled the end of the “cooperative policy” between China and the Western treaty powers. Before the incident, rumors circulated in Tientsin that the French Sisters of Charity were kidnapping and mutilating Chinese children.

19 July 1870 - 10 May 1871 Franco-Prussian War. The Franco-Prussian War was caused by the clash between the desire of Prince Bismarck’s Prussia to be at the heart of a unified Germany and the France of emperor Napoleon III seeking to reaffirm itself as the dominant European power. France, under the leadership of Emperor Napoleon III provoked war with Prussia. France lost badly to Wilhelm I (Wilhelm II's grandfather). Prussia’s victory guaranteed the unification of Germany and confirmed the dominance of the Prussian military system in Europe. The war was ended by the Treaty of Frankfurt of 1871. Among the losses were the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine in western France which were annexed to Germany. Bismarck was against this action fearing the French would never forgive it.

"A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one."

-Bismarck on France

Moltke (the senior) summed it up well: "What our sword has won in half a year our sword must guard for half a century"

Education Act of 1870 passed in England. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe, remarked that the government would now "have to educate our masters." As a result of this view, the government passed the 1870 Education Act. The act, drafted by William Forster stated: (a) the country would be divided into about 2500 school districts; (b) School Boards were to be elected by ratepayers in each district; (c) the School Boards were to examine the provision of elementary education in their district, provided then by Voluntary Societies, and if there were not enough school places, they could build and maintain schools out of the rates; (d) the school Boards could make their own by-laws which would allow them to charge fees or, if they wanted, to let children in free. The 1870 Education Act allowed women to vote for the School Boards. Women were also granted the right to be candidates to serve on the School Boards. Several feminists saw this as an opportunity to show they were capable of public administration. In 1870, four women, Flora Stevenson, Lydia Becker, Emily Davies and Elizabeth Garrett were elected to local School Boards. Elizabeth Garrett, a popular local doctor, obtained more votes Marylebone than any other candidate in the country.

August - The Tower Subway - Opening of the first London Tube tunnel, from the Tower of London to Bermondsey.

10 December - The North German Confederation Reichstag renamed the Confederation as the German Empire and gave the title ofGerman Emperor to William I, the King of Prussia, as President of the Confederation

The All Red Line telegraph lines from Britain to India were connected in 1870 (those several companies combined to form the Eastern Telegraph Company in 1872). Also referred to as the All-Red Route, it includes rail and steamship links for mail expanded from 1868 through the 1880's. Some references date the complete system from 1902 when the Pacific segments connected.

Tyndall Effect Explained by British physicist, John Tyndall, who conducted research on colloids, leading to his discovery of what is now known as the Tyndall effect. He investigated the dispersion of light beams through colloidal suspensions. The perceived blue color of the sky is a result of the Tyndall effect. Tyndall undertook extensive research into the nature of light, sound, and heat and also investigated the structure and development of glaciers.

First all-metal bicycle patented (1870)

Edison's Martian Expedition pilots primitive Ether Flyer to Mars, and returns.

Earth discovers that Mars is inhabited.

Discovery of liftwood on Mars revolutionizes flight. The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London begins to offer rewards for viable liftwood plants and seeds.

1871

18 January - During the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William was formally proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Prince Otto Edward Leopold von Bismarck, aka The Iron Chancellor, a Prussian statesman, united the German states into one empire. Bismarck is noted for saying that the great problems of Germany would not be settled by speeches and resolutions but by “blood and iron”.

"I am bored. The great things are done. The German Reich is made."

Bismarck after the German unification of 1871

18 March - The Commune of Paris, which was an insurrection of Parisians against the French government, began, lasting until May 28. The Paris Commune was a short-lived French revolutionary government that took power in 1871 in the aftermath of the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. With the government capitulating to the peace terms of the Prussians, and the victorious Prussian army encamped outside Paris, the city broke into revolt. The insurrection led to the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship and the election of a council, which came to be known as the Commune. The Communards, consisting of followers of the revolutionary socialist Auguste Blanqui, and of Pierre Proudhon, who had died in 1865, began to implement reforms to working conditions but were rapidly and ruthlessly crushed by government forces, who massacred over 20,000 citizens, while the Communards killed many of their hostages in retaliation. The Paris Commune had lasted barely two months, but it became an important symbol to revolutionary Communists. For Karl Marx, who analyzed it in The Civil War in France, the Commune vindicated his ideas on the process of history, confirming revolution as a means to liberate the proletariat.

(Note: In Space:1889v2 the Commune wins)

14 April - German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April,

10 May - Franco-Prussian war ends in German victory. The Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine, territory ceded to the German Empire in the Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 following the Franco-Prussian war, was given a special status. Contrary

to German hopes, the population of Alsace-Lorraine did not merge quickly with the new Empire

13 May - With the Law of Guarantees (Legge Delle Guarentigie), the Italian government attempted to settle the question of its relationship with the Pope, who had been deprived of his lands in central Italy during the process of Italian national unification.

21 May - The Commune of Paris revolted against the French national government under Adolphe Thiers, beginning a period of violence known as “Bloody Week.”

8-9 October - Fire destroys 3.5 square miles of Chicago (Great Chicago Fire).

10 November - Famous meeting between Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley, a New York Herald correspondent, at Ujiji, a small village on the shore of Lake Tanganyika and famously greeted him (at least according to his own journal) by saying "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" (which was tongue-in-cheek because Livingstone was the only white person for hundreds of miles).

I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob--would have embraced him, but that I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what moral cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing--walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said: "DR. LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME?" "Yes," said he, with a kind, cordial smile, lifting his cap slightly. (from How I Found Livingstone)

In 1871 Stanley had started his expedition to East Africa. To Katie Gough-Roberts, a young woman living in Denbigh, he sent a number of letters, and planned to marry her after the journey. However, she married an architect. Although he was deserted by his bearers, plagued by disease and warring tribes but after he found Livingstone near Lake Tanganyika in Ujiji on November 10, 1871 they explored the northern end of Lake Tangayika - Richard Francis Burton claimed Lake Tangayika as the source of the River Nile. Livingstone had journeyed extensively in central and southern Africa from 1840 and fought to destroy the slave tradeStanley joined him in exploring the region, establishing for certain that there was no connection between Lake Tanganyika and the river Nile. On his return, he wrote a book about his experiences.

Babbage produces a prototype section of the Analytical Engine's mill and printer.

British naturalist Charles Darwin caused a storm of controversy by publishing The Descent of Man (1871), in which he set out his theories on the evolution of human beings, and developed the theory of sexual selection as a means of organic change. This went further than his earlier work, On The Origin of Species, which had deliberately avoided the controversial issues relating to human evolution.

The Royal Ethereal Research Establishment at Farnborough is opened. It is staffed by a collection of Government employed scientists and inventors researching all things Ethereal. It is also, however, a military establishment and as a result most of the employees hold a military commission of some kind, thus making it a potential background site for PC's wishing to combine military and scientific careers.

First American pterosaur fossils discovered by Othniel Charles Marsh.

Phineas Taylor Barnum's (July 5, 1810 -– April 7, 1891) circus by 1872 was billing itself as "The Greatest Show on Earth" went through a number of variants on these names: "P.T. Barnum's Traveling World's Fair, Great Roman Hippodrome and Greatest Show On Earth", and after an 1881 merger with James Bailey and James L. Hutchinson, "P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United", soon shortened to "Barnum & London Circus". He and Bailey split up again in 1885, but came back together in 1888 with the "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth", later "Barnum & Bailey Circus", which toured around the world. The show's primary attraction was Jumbo, an African elephant he purchased in 1882 from the London Zoo.

Jesse James robs his first passenger train

Italian unification (called in Italian the Risorgimento, or "Resurgence") was the political and social process that unified disparate states of the Italian peninsula into the single nation of Italy. It is difficult to pin down exact dates for the beginning and end of Italian reunification, but most scholars agree that it began with the end of Napoleonic rule and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and largely ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, though the last "città irredente" did not join the Kingdom of Italy until the Treaty of Saint-Germain after World War I.

1872

3 January - 1st patent list issued by US Patent Office

20 February - Hydraulic electric elevator patented by Cyrus Baldwin

1 March - President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill into law that created Yellowstone National Park.

5 March - George Westinghouse Jr patents triple air brake for trains

26 March - Thomas J Martin patents fire extinguisher

1 April - 1st edition of The Standard

2 April - George B Brayton patents gasoline powered engine

14 April - Dominion Lands Act passed-Canada's Homestead Act

24 April - Volcano Vesuvius erupts

18 July - The Ballot Act introduces the secret ballot in elections in Britain; previously votes were made openly.

30 July - Mahlon Loomis patents wireless telegraphy

18 August - 1st mail-order catalog issued by A M Ward

18 September - King Oscar II accedes to the throne of Sweden-Norway.

9 October - Aaron Montgomery started his mail-order business

19 October - World's largest gold nugget (215 kg) found in New South Wales

29 October - J S Risdon patents metal windmill

5 November - Ulysses S. Grant re-elected US President

7 November - Cargo ship Mary Celeste sails from Staten Island for Genoa; mysteriously found abandoned 4 weeks later.

9 November - The Great Boston Fire of 1872. Close to 1,000 buildings destroyed

19 November - E.D. Barbour of Boston is awarded the first U.S. patent for the first 'calculator', an adding machine capable of printing totals and subtotals

4 December - The ship the Mary Celeste discovered mysteriously abandoned by her crew in the Atlantic Ocean

7 December - HMS Challenger sets sail on 3½ year world oceanographic cruise

France passes law of Universal Service. (Draft)

First British foothold on Mars with the establishment of the Permanent British Quarter in Parhoon.

1873

9 January - US Congress begins investigating Crédit Mobilier scandal

13 March — Gladstone resigns as Prime Minister, but the Conservatives fail to form a government, and Gladstone returns to office two days later.

1 March - E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York begins production of the first practical typewriter.

31 March — Supreme Court of Judicature Act reforms the judiciary, establishing the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales and abolishing theCourt of Common Pleas as a separate institution and, with it, the office of attorney at law.

2 April — The first sleeping car is introduced in Britain, on the Glasgow to London night express.

April — Ashanti attack British forts in the Gold Coast.

1 May - Emperor Franz Jozef opens 5th World's Exposition in Vienna

12 May - Oscar II of Sweden-Norway is crowned King of Sweden.

23 May - Canada's North West Mounted Police Force forms

2 June - Construction begins on Clay St (SF) for world's 1st cable railroad

5 June - Sultan Bargash closes slave market of Zanzibar after much British pressure.

9 June — Alexandra Palace in London destroyed by fire only a fortnight after its opening.

18 June - Susan B. Anthony fined $100 for voting for President

1 July - Prince Edward Island becomes 7th Canadian province

21 July - Jesse James & James Younger gang's 1st train robbery (Adair Iowa)

1 August - SF's 1st cable car begins service

23 August - Albert Bridge creossing Thames opens

15 September - Last German troops leave France

18 September - Government bond agent Jay Cooke & Co collapses, causing panic on Wall St, the start of the panic of 1873 and the Long depression

20 September - Panic sweeps NY Stock Exchange (railroad bond default/bank failure) NY shut banks for 10 days due to a bank scandal

5 November - Due to the fallout from the Pacific Scandal, John A. Macdonald resigns as Prime Minister of Canada

20 November - Rival cities of Buda & Pest unite to form the capital of Hungary

26 November - British troops invade Ashanti territory.

The Home Rule League was one of the organizations that campaigned for Ireland’s legislative independence from the United Kingdom. In particular, it sought to secure an Irish parliament that would be answerable to Westminster on imperial matters only.

1873 - 1874 James Starley Invents Early Bicycle. James Starley, British inventor, is best known for his development of the early bicycle. His bicycle, using steel-rimmed wheels with solid rubber tyres, was patented in 1869. Starley developed the geared bicycle, producing a machine that incorporated most of the design features of what has become known as the high-wheel bicycle.

David Livingstone died in 1873 on the Shores of Lake Bagweulu. His body was shipped back to England and buried in Westminster Abbey - Henry Morton Stanley was one of the pall-bearers.

Central Park in New York is completed. The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, both of whom later created Brooklyn's Prospect Park. While much of the park looks natural, it is in fact almost entirely landscaped and contains several artificial lakes, extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and grassy areas used for various sporting pursuits, as well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The park was not part of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. However, between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in population. As the city expanded, people were drawn to the few open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city. Before long, however, New York City's need for a great public park was voiced by the poet and editor of the then-Evening Post (now the New York Post), William Cullen Bryant, and by the first American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who began to publicize the city's need for a public park in 1844. A stylish place for open-air driving, like the Bois de Boulogne in Paris or London's Hyde Park, was felt to be needed by many influential New Yorkers, and in 1853 the New York legislature designated a 700 acre (2.8 km²) area from 59th to 106th Streets for the creation of the park, to a cost of more than US$5 million for the land alone.

Edison loses patent suit against Armstrong Ether Flyer Company. Both firms compete vigorously in design and construction of spacecraft.

The first French scientific expedition to Mars, led by Dr. Claude Massigny, lands near Idaeus Fons and establishes friendly relations with it's ruler King Lotmar.

1874

1 January - New York City annexes the Bronx

13 January - US troops land in Honolulu to protect the king

12 February - King David Kalakaua of Sandwich Is Hawaii, is 1st king to visit US

21 February - Benjamin Disraeli succeeds William Gladstone as British premier

18 March - Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trading rights.

5 April - Birkenhead Park, the first civic public park, is opened in Birkenhead, England. Designed by Joseph Paxton

18 April - David Livingstone, African explorer, buried in Westminster Abbey

9 May - Victoria Embankment, in London opens

29 May - Present constitution of Switzerland takes effect

22 June - Game of lawn tennis introduced

8 July - The Mounties (North West Mounted Police) begin their March West from Fort Dufferin

9 October - World Postal Union forms in Bern Switzerland

10 October - Fiji becomes a British possession

7 November - 1st cartoon depicting elephant as Republican Party symbol, by Thomas Nast

24 November - Joseph F Glidden patents barbed wire

The first ice-cream soda sold.

Armstrong expedition to Venus fails to return.

Belgians and French establish enclaves on Mars

1875

12 January - Kwang-su becomes emperor of China.

26 January - Electric dental drill is patented by George F Green

24 February - The SS Gothenburg hits the Great Barrier Reef and sinks off the Australian east coast, killing approximately 100, including a number of high profile civil servants and dignitaries.

1 May - Alexandra Palace, London, reopens after being burnt down in 1873

16 May - Quake in Venezuela & Colombia kills 16,000

20 May - International Bureau of Weights & Measures forms by treaty

2 June - Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound transmission

5 June - Pacific Stock Exchange formally opens in San Francisco

22 June - Garonne Flood: great damage in Verdun & Toulouse, kills about 1,000

1 July - Universal Postal Union established

July - First flight of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's Luft Zeppelin LZ-1 rigid airship

25 August - Matthew Webb becomes 1st to swim English Channel (21h 45m)

22 October - First telegraphic connection in Argentina.

16 November - Battle of Gundet: Ethiopian emperor Yohannes beats Egyptians

4 December - William Marcy "Boss" Tweed (NYC-Tammany Hall) escapes from jail

Edison discovers "Etheric Force," an electric phenomenon that is the foundation of wireless telegraphy.

Lapworth identifies the Ordovician System. The Ordovician System was proposed by Charles Lapworth in 1879 as a compromise to resolve the conflict between Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison over the interval of overlap of their Cambrian and Silurian systems. The Ordovician System was based on fossiliferous rock units (Arenig, Bala, Llandeilo, and Caradoc) long-established in Wales and the Welsh Borderlands, and by 1900 it was widely used in Britain and elsewhere in the world. However, as late as 1976 (Williams et al, 1976), the upper and lower boundaries of the system were subject to substantially different interpretations among Ordovician stratigraphers, and, over time, the traditional British Ordovician series were revised substantially (Fortey et al, 1995). Although the British series became the lingua franca for global correlation, such correlation was greatly hindered by the high level of biogeographic and ecologic differentiation of Ordovician biotas. Accordingly, regional series and stages were established for Ordovician successions on many different paleoplates.

Britain buys the Suez canal. The prime minister Benjamin Disraeli had long been interested in buying part of the Suez for Britain, but so were several other countries. The biggest opposition would come from the French shareholders, but the French knew something that nobody else did. They knew that the Khedive had spent the country's surplus money and needed cash fast. The Khedive had decided that if someone were to offer, he would sell his 177.2 shares of the Suez Canal Company. Since the French didn't think anybody else knew, they took their time raising the money. They did not know that Disraeli was a friend to the world's largest banker at the time, Baron Lionel de Rothschild. Rothschild knew of the Khedive's financial state and when Disraeli asked about it, he told. Disraeli then also asked if he could get a loan for 4 million British pounds to buy the shares, and Rothschild agreed. He immediately sent a courier to propose the buy to the Khedive. French, Turkish, and Russian spies all discovered this information and sent their own people but it was too late. Disraeli had already bought the Khedive's shares. He then convinced the Queen and Parliament to pay off his debt to Rothschild.

Sir Henry Morton Stanley, also known in the Congo as Bula Matari (Breaker of Rocks or, alternatively, Sledge Hammer) , born John Rowlands (January 28, 1841 – May 10, 1904), meets with Kabaka (King) Mutesa I of the Buganda Kingdom and then goes to explore the region around Lake Victoria.

Ferdinand de Lesseps made his first public declaration of interest in an interoceanic canal.

President Ulysses Grant vetoes a bill protecting buffalo and other wildlife.

The Channel Tunnel. There had been numerous proposals for a tunnel under the channel throughout the 19th Century including one by Napoleon, but the first serious attempt to build a tunnel came with an Act of Parliament in 1875 authorizing the Channel Tunnel Company Ltd. to start preliminary trials. This was an Anglo French project with a simultaneous Act of Parliament in France.

The first expeditions of the Belgians was led by Henry Morton Stanley to "prove that the Congo natives were susceptible of civilization and that the Congo basin was rich enough to repay exploitation". Stanley's revelation of the commercial possibilities of the region resulted in the setting up of a large trading venture and led to the founding of the Congo Free State in 1885.

France establishes the "Ecole Superieure de Guerre", The War College.

Collingswood Expedition to Venus fails to return.

The first Martian expeditions of the Belgians were also led by Henry Morton Stanley to "prove that the Coprates natives were susceptible of civilization and that the Coprates valley was rich enough to repay exploitation". Stanley's revelation of the commercial possibilities of the region resulted in the setting up of a large trading venture and led to frequent native rebellions in 1882 as well as the founding of the Upper Coprates State in 1885. While David Livingstone combined geographical, religious, commercial, and humanitarian goals in his exploration journeys, Stanley created the direct link between exploration and colonization, especially in the service of Leopold II of Belgium. Stanley represented Leopold in signing treaties with bewildered Martian chiefs. Leopold II's ruthless exploitation of the natural resources of the Congo ("the rubber atrocities") and Coprates were protested by the international community and the Belgian parliament eventually forced the king to give up personal control of the regions.

1876

31 January - The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.

2 February - The National League, the oldest existing major-league professional baseball organization in the United States, began play as the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.

14 February - A G Bell & Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor.

17 February - Sardines 1st canned (Julius Wolff-Eastport, Maine)

18 February - Direct telegraph link established between Britain & New Zealand.

10 March - 1st telephone call made (Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson) Alexander Graham Bell constructed this prototype telephone consisting of a coil of wire, a magnetic arm and a taut membrane. Any sound causes the membrane, and hence the magnetic arm, to vibrate. The movement of the magnet induces a fluctuating electric current in the coil. This electrical signal can be reconverted into sound by an identical apparatus at the other end of the circuit.

11 April - Sir Charles Gordon ends religious tolerance in Sudan.

2 May - The April Uprising breaks out in Bulgaria.

10 May - Centennial Fair opens in Philadelphia.

26 May - HMS Challenger returns from 128,000-km oceanographic exploration.

30 May - Ottoman sultan Abd-ul-Aziz is deposed and succeeded by his nephew Murat V.

4 June - An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after having left New York City.

15 June - Tsunamis after earthquake floods NE coast of Japan, kills 28,000

25 June - General George Armstrong Custer and his entire command are wiped out at the battle of the Little Big Horn.

30 June - Serbia declares war on Turkey.

3 July - Montenegro declares war on Turkey.

8 August - Thomas Edison patents mimeograph.

31 August - Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.

14 September - Henry Morton Stanley's expedition leaves Rwanda

26 September - 1st Belgian parachute jump (Glorieux)

9 October - 1st 2-way telephone conversation, 1st over outdoor wires

31 October - Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (Modern-day Bangladesh), resulting in over 200,000 human deaths.

1 November - King Willem III opens North Sea Canal (Amsterdam-IJmuiden)

7 November - President Rutherford B. Hayes & Samuel J Tilden claim presidential victory Tilden (D) wins election but Electoral college selects Hayes (R)

5 December - Daniel Stillson (Mass) patents 1st practical pipe wrench

23 December - Turkey's 1st constitution proclaimed

Robert Koch obtains pure cultures of the anthrax bacillus and transmits the disease to laboratory animals; the first time a germ is definitively proven to cause a disease.

The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland is founded.

Root beer mass produced for public sale for the first time.

Start of three year drought and famine in China; an estimated 9 million people die from its effects.

In 1876, The English explorer Sir Henry Wickham (May 29, 1846 – September 27, 1928), at the request of the India Office, collected and shipped from the Portugese controlled Santarém area of Brazil 70,000 seeds from the wild rubber tree ( Hevea brasiliensis). These were rushed to Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London and planted in specially prepared hot-houses. The small number, which survived and became seedlings, were taken in 1877 to Ceylon and later to Malaysia and other countries of South-east Asia allowing the establishment of a British controlled Rubber industry. Rubber plantations in Asia were much more efficient and outproduced Brazil. This was because the Asian rubber plantations were organized and well suited for production on a commercial scale whereas in Brazil the process of latex gathering from forest trees remained a difficult extractive process: rubber tappers worked natural rubber groves in the southern Amazon forest, and rubber tree densities were almost always low, as a consequence of high natural forest diversity. Moreover, experiments in cultivating rubber trees in plantations in the Amazon showed them to be vulnerable to South American rubber tree leaf blight fungus and other diseases and pests. Thus Wickham has been accused of dooming the Amazonian rubber boom. In fact, in Brazil, Wickham is labeled as a "bio-pirate" for his role in stealing the rubber seeds that broke the Brazilian monopoly. In 1876, no Brazilian law would have prevented Wickham's collection of the seeds, but it is believed by many that he may have misrepresented his cargo as dead botanical material destined for the herbarium in order to obtain an export license in Belém.

The British Royal Society expedition to Mercury, led by Sir Basil Throckmorton planted the British flag for the first time on Mercury.

1877

1 January - England's Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India

30 January - Storm flood ravages Dutch coastal provinces

12 March - Great Britain annexes Walvis Bay at Cape colony, Southern Africa.

24 April - Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878: Russia declares war on Ottoman Empire.

9 July - First ever Wimbledon tennis championship begins - first offical lawn tennis tournament - men's singles only

11 July - Kate Edger becomes New Zealand’s first woman graduate and the first woman in the British Empire to earn a Bachelor of Arts.

14 July - As anti-Terran sentiment grows amongst the Martian population of Idaeus Fons, riots break out when a mob of Martians attacked a Bastille Day celebration. Six Frenchmen died in the fighting, and much property was damaged. The French Consul demanded a full apology and reparations from the King. When he refused, the French declared war.

12 August - Thomas Edison invents Edisonphone, a sound recording device.

21 November - Tom Edison announces his "talking machine" invention (phonograph) - first machine to play and record sound

29 November - US inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time.

November - Five French regiments landed, near Idaeus Fons on Mars, and shattered the city's army in three battles. The French compelled King Lotmar to step down in favor of his nephew Akvan. Several nobles were imprisoned and their lands turned over to the French as compensation.

15 December - Thomas Edison patents phonograph

In 1877 Stanley made the first complete traverse of the Iruri River, whose waters flow some 800 miles before joining the Congo in the vicinity of present-day Kisangani. By the time he abandoned the river to go directly for Lake Edward, fifty-two of his men were so crippled by leg ulcers and malnutrition, that he had to leave them on the riverbank at a place he named Starvation Camp.

First British Protestant missionaries arrive in the Buganda Kingdom and begin converting the Africans to their brand of Christianity.

"Granola" introduced by James Harvey Kellogg, renamed to avoid being sued by Jackson. Kellogg incorporated a rolling process to flake the grain, making it more edible.

After the development of Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, several experiments were performed to prove the existence of ether and its motion relative to the Earth. The most famous and successful was the one now known as the Michelson-Morley experiment, performed by Albert Michelson (1852-1931) and Edward Morley (1838-1923) in 1887. It had long been posited that the ether filled the whole universe and was a stationary frame of reference, which was rigid to electromagnetic waves but completely permeable to matter. Hooke endorsed the idea of the existence of the ether in his work Micrographia (1665), and several other philosophers of the 17th century, including Huygens, did the same. At the time of Maxwell's mathematical studies of electromagnetism, ether was believed to be the propagation medium and was imbued with physics properties such as permeability and permittivity. From this theory it follows that it should appear to be moving from the perspective of an observer on the sun-orbiting Earth. As a result, light would sometimes travel in the same direction of the ether, and others times in the opposite direction. Thus, the idea was to measure the speed of light in different directions in order to measure speed of the ether relative to Earth. Michelson and Morley built a Michelson interferometer, which essentially consists of a light source, a half-silvered glass plate, two mirrors, and a telescope. The mirrors are placed at right angles to each other and at equal distance from the glass plate, which is obliquely oriented at an angle of 45° relative to the two mirrors. In the original device, the mirrors were mounted on a rigid base that rotates freely on a basin filled with liquid mercury in order to reduce friction. Michelson and Morley were able to measure the speed of light by looking for interference fringes between the light which had passed through the two perpendicular arms of their apparatus. These would occur since the light would travel faster along an arm if oriented in the "same" direction as the ether was moving, and slower if oriented in the opposite direction. Since the two arms were perpendicular, the only way that light would travel at the same speed in both arms and therefore arrive simultaneous at the telescope would be if the instrument were motionless with respect to the ether. If not, the crests and troughs of the light waves in the two arms would arrive and interfere slightly out of synchronization, producing a diminution of intensity.

London Times Venus rescue expedition fails to return.

The British Royal Society's 2nd expedition to Mercury, led by Sir Basil Throckmorton drove deep into the Forbidding Desert on a specially insulated Mercurian exploratory aerial flyer, claiming vast tracts of land along the equator for the British Empire.

1878

8 January - Secret meeting of King Leopold II's agent & Henry Morton Stanley.

9 January - Umberto I becomes King of Italy.

2 February - Greece declares war on Turkey.

3 March - The Preliminary Treaty of San Stefano was a treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed at the end of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78. It was signed at San Stefano (now Yes,ilköy), a village west of Istanbul, by Count Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev and Alexander Nelidov on behalf of the Russian Empire and Foreign Minister Safvet Pasha and Ambassador to Germany Sadullah Bey on behalf of the Ottoman Empire. 3 March, the day the Treaty of San Stefano was signed, is the national holiday of the Republic of Bulgaria

8 April - The Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police was founded by Howard Vincent. He was replaced by James Monro in 1884 and in 1888 Robert Anderson took charge after Monro's resignation. Initially Vincent was directly responsible to the Home Secretary, but since 1888 the CID has come under the authority of the Commissioner. Vincent inherited a small body of detectives in Scotland Yard, with others in the Divisions under the command of Divisional Superintendents. His new Department proposed for the first time the formal establishment of permanent Divisional Detective sections who would liaise with the central Branch at Scotland Yard. The 60 Divisional Detective patrols and 20 Special Patrols commanded by 159 sergeants and 15 Detective Inspectors would be an improvement on the occasional plain clothes or 'winter patrols' of two working on a monthly shift system in the Divisions. At Scotland Yard the old Detective Branch was remodeled with one Superintendent (Williamson) commanding 3 Chief Inspectors and 20 Inspectors, and an office staff of six Sergeants and constables. The CID were paid slightly more than uniformed police, and could also claim a number of allowances. In 1883 Vincent set up the Special Irish Branch, which, as Special Branch, would become the first of the specialized squads and units spun off from the CID.

Apr 21st - NY installs 1st firehouse pole.

4 June - Cyprus ceded by Turkey to Britain for administrative purposes.

June 13 - July 13 - The Treaty of Berlin was the final Act of the Congress of Berlin, by which the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman government under Sultan Hamid revised the Treaty of San Stefano signed on March 3 of the same year. The Treaty provided for an autonomous Bulgarian principality comprising Moesia and the region of Sofia. Most of Thrace was included in the autonomous region of Eastern Rumelia, whereas the rest of Thrace along with the whole of Macedonia was returned under the sovereignty of the Ottomans.

1 July - Treaty of Berlin divides Africa for colonization

12 September - Cleopatra's Needle erected on the north bank of the River Thames at Victoria Embankment in London. This ancient Egyptian obelisk had been given to Britain by the Turkish Viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, in 1819, although it was not until 1877, when engineer John Dixon built an iron cylindrical pontoon to tow it out to sea, that it arrived in Britain, where it was erected on the north bank of the River Thames at Victoria Embankment, London. It is now believed that Cleopatra’s Needle was originally erected at Heliopolis in Egypt around 1475 BC.

The first Diplodocus skeleton is found at Como Bluff, Wyoming.

15 October - Edison Electric Light Company incorporated

British forces marched through the Khyber Pass to launch an offensive against the Afghans in the Second Afghan War (1878-79). It was at Ali Masjid that Sir Neville Chamberlains friendly mission to the amir Shere Ali was stopped in 1878, thus causing the second Afghan War; and on the outbreak of that war Ali Masjid was captured by Sir Samuel Browne; The treaty which closed the war in May 1879 left the Khyber tribes under British control. From that time the pass was protected by jezailchis drawn from the Afridi tribe, who were paid a subsidy by the British government.

Swan and Edison Independently Invent the Light Bulb. Joseph Swan, a British chemist and inventor, and Thomas Alva Edison, an American inventor, are credited with the invention of the electric light bulb, in 1878 and 1879 respectively. Swan constructed a light bulb by using carbon wire within a vacuum bulb; Edison produced the same invention a year later, but filed a patent. Edison sued Swan, believing him to have copied his idea. As part of the settlement of the action, they formed the Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company in 1883.

First modern bathymetric map completed after studies in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

King Lotmar, deposed ruler of Idaeus Fons, signed a treaty accepting French military protection and guidance in foreign affairs. Seperate courts for French citizens are set up, and a reduced tariff was set uo for goods brought in on French ether flyers.

A German expedition spends six months exploring the Mercurian World river.

In 1878 representatives of the Colonial Office, the Royal Navy, the Royal Mail and the Army met at the Prince Consort's Library in Aldershot, to discuss the growing problem of communications between the Red Planet and Earth. All four institutions recognized the need for a fast, secure and regular method of communication and personnel transfer between the two planets. After a few days of consultations, in an uncommon show of inter-service unity they devised the Ether Dispatch Service. This service was to consist of a large number of small, but very fast, Ether Flyers shuttling between Earth and Mars. So acute was the need for this service that within the year the necessary budgets had been found and Her Majesty had given the service its Royal Charter as well.

In 1878, Stanley (who had found Livingstone some years earlier) visited Mombasa and flew to Lake Victoria in an aerial flyer, circumnavigating Lake Victoria from the air.

German Ether Dirigible lands on Venus and discovers fate of the first three expeditions.

1879

2 January - British battleship Thunder explodes in Gulf of Ismid, 9 die

11 January - Anglo-Zulu War broke out between Britain and the Zulus, and signaled the end of the Zulus as an independent nation. It had complex beginnings, some bad decisions and bloody battles that caused the British to engage earlier than they intended, but played out a common story of colonialism.

22 January - Battle at Rorke's Drift: British garrison of 150 holds off 3,000-4,000 Zulu warriors

10 February - 1st electric arc light used (California Theater)

10 February - Henry Morton Stanley departs for the Congo

12 February - 1st artificial ice rink in North America (Madison Sq Garden, NYC)

23 March - War of the Pacific was fought between Chile and the joints forces of Bolivia and Peru.

3 April - Sofia, liberated from the Ottoman Empire by Russian troops, was named the capital of Bulgaria.

The British constructed a road through the Khyber Pass. A revolt flared up on the frontier region and the valleys of Khyber started vibrating with the echoes of war. British forces occupy Khyber Pass. From 1879 onward, Colonel R.

29 April - Alexander Joseph of Battenberg (April 5, 1857 - November 17, 1893) elected Prince Alexander I of Bulgaria, reigned from April 29, 1879 to September 7, 1886).

1 May - The first of the Town Class of Ether Dispatch Flyers, the Farnborough, was launched from Her Majesty's Ether Dispatch Service's newly built shipyard, cum Headquarters, next to the Royal Ethereal Research Establishment in Farnborough. Under the command of the newly promoted Admiral Sefton Inwood, Her Majesty's Ether Dispatch Flyer Farnborough, completed her 10 days of trials without a hitch , and began her maiden flight to Mars. This was completed in 43 days, a new record as the Farnborough achieved her designed average speed of 5 million miles per day. Inspired by the success of the Farnborough's first flight she was joined within the year by her sister Flyers, the Aldershot and the Portsmouth.

8 May - George Selden files for 1st patent for a gasoline-driven automobileMay 16th - Treaty of Gandamak to set up Afghan state between Russia & English.

31 May - 1st electric railway opens at Berlin Trades Exposition

1 June - Napoleon Eugene, the last dynastic Bonaparte, is killed serving with British forces in the Anglo-Zulu War. He is buried in Farnborough, Hampshire.

26 June - Ismael Pasha resigns as khedive of Egypt. Radical Egyptian elements depose Ismail, the Khedive of Egypt. He is succeeded by Tewfik.

4 July - The Battle of Ulundi, South Africa took place at the Zulu capital of Ulundi and proved to be the decisive battle that finally broke the military power of the Zulu nation.

31 July - The first cable connection between South Africa and Europe.

17 August - Ferdinand de Lesseps forms French Panama Canal Company.

3 September - British legation in Kabul massacred. Lieutenant Walter Hamilton, an Irishman of 22 years, was awarded the Victoria Cross and, with the ending of the first phase of the war, given command of the small party of Queen’s Own Guides Cavalry and Infantry that escorted Cavagnari to Kabul. On 3rd September 1879 mutinous Afghan troops from the Herati regiments, scorning their western colleagues who had lost the war to the British and Indians, stormed the Residency in the Bala Hissar in Kabul and killed Cavagnari and his escort of Guides after a ferocious battle. Hamilton is commemorated by a statue in Dublin.

7 October - The Dual Alliance is struck between Germany and Austria-Hungary. Not enthusiastic about the alliance and feeling it may offend the Russia that had stood by Prussia, Wilhelm I commented upon signing: "Thinking of what it means I feel like a traitor."

21 October - the first successful test of Edison's carbon filament based incandescent light bulb or incandescent lamp, ; it lasted 13.5 hours). Thomas Edison discovers incandescent light which is a source of artificial light that works by incandescence, in which an electric current passes through a thin filament, heating it and causing it to emit light. The "bulb" is the glass enclosure around the filament that often contains a vacuum or is filled with a low-pressure noble gas to prevent the filament from burning out due to evaporation at the high temperature., radically improving dynamos and generators, discovers a system of distribution, regulation, and measurement of electric current-switches, fuses, sockets, and meters.

4 November - Elkins patents refrigerating apparatus.

5 December - 1st automatic telephone switching system patented

28 December - The Tay Bridge Disaster. When the first Tay Rail Bridge, which crossed the Firth of Tay between Dundee and Wormit in Scotland, collapsed during a violent storm while a train was passing over it. The bridge was designed by the noted railway engineer Sir Thomas Bouch, using a lattice grid that combined wrought and cast iron. During a violent storm on the evening of 28 December 1879, the centre section of the bridge, known as the "High Girders", collapsed, taking with it a train that was running on its single track. All 75 people on the train were killed. The total number was only established by a meticulous examination of ticket sales, some from as far away as King's Cross.Of the 60 known victims, only 46 were found, with two bodies not being recovered until February 1880.

31 December - Cornerstone laid for Honolulu's Iolani Palace (only royal palace in US)

31 December - Edison gives 1st public demonstration of his incandescent lamp

The French Panama Canal Company is organized and headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps.

Ute Indian Uprising at the White River agency in 1879 in which Indian agent Nathan Meeker and other agency employees were murdered, his wife and daughter and another woman, abducted. This "incident," as the contemporary Utes called it, provided the excuse for Governor Frederick Pitkin and other prominent Denver citizens to demand removal of the Utes from Colorado. "The Utes must go," was their rallying cry. What provoked the White River Utes to take up arms was that Meeker, a sincere but unwise Fourierien socialist, he was the principal founder of the Union Colony at Greeley, pushed the Indians too far in his zeal to make model farmers out of these nomadic, horse-loving Indians. The last straw came when Meeker plowed up Ute Johnson's pony pasture and racetrack in Powell Park near the agency headquarters (west of the town of Meeker) as a punitive act to show who was boss.

Germany declares Alsace-Lorraine to be an integral part of the German Empire. Central administration was transferred to Strasbourg and placed in the hands of an imperial governor-general instead of the chancellor of the Reich.

Warburton has controlled the Khyber, and for the greater part of that time secured its safety.

King Leopold II or Belgium hired the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley to establish a colony in the Congo region.

Louis Pasteur grows the fowl cholera bacillus in culture. Returning to his Paris laboratory after a vacation, he inoculates chickens with the aged culture and discovers that the weakened bacillus does not cause disease and that it creates immunity in the chickens to more virulent strains of cholera..

A committee investigates the feasibility of completing the Analytical Engine and concludes that it is possible even now that Babbage is dead. The project is completed by Imperial Business Machines (IBM).

Sir Basil Throckmorton's Third Expedition to Mercury circumnavigated the planet by following the course of the World River in his aerial flyer. The expedition also undertook several side trips into the frigidity of the Dark Side.

1880

1 January - On the first day of the new year of 1880, on board a steam launch standing of the mouth of the Rio Grande, de Lesseps young daughter Fernanda dug the first shovel of sand into a champagne box and the Panama Canal was symbolically begun.

2 February - SS Strathleven arrives in London with 1st Australian frozen mutton

17 February - Tsar Alexander II of Russia survives an assassination attempt.

29 February - Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland & Italy completed

1 June - 1st pay telephone installed

28 June - Ned Kelly the Australian bushranger captured at Glenrowan.

23 July - 1st commercial hydroelectric power planet begins, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

2 August - British Parliament officially adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

17 September - Geo Ligowsky patents device to throw clay pigeons for trapshooters

2 November - James A Garfield (R) elected 20th US President

16 December - The First Boer War also known as the Transvaal War, was fought from 1880 until March 23, 1881. It was the first clash between the British and the Transvaal Boers. It was precipitated by Sir Theophilus Shepstone who annexed the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) for the British in 1877. The British consolidated their power over most of the colonies of South Africa in 1879 after the Anglo-Zulu War. The Boers protested and in December 1880 they revolted. The war began on December 16, 1880 with shots fired by Transvaal Boers at Potchefstroom after Transvaal formally declared independence from Great Britain. It led to the action at Bronkhorstspruit on December 20 1880, where the Boers ambushed and destroyed a British army convoy. From December 22 1880 to January 6 1881, British army garrisons all over the Transvaal became besieged. The Boers were dressed in their everyday farming clothes, which were a neutral or earth tone khaki clothing, whereas the British uniforms were still bright scarlet red, a stark contrast to the African landscape, which enabled the Boers, being expert marksmen, to easily snipe at British troops from a distance.

20 December - NY's Broadway lit by electricity, becomes known as "Great White Way"Edison continued to improve his incandescent lamp design and by 1880 had the patent for a lamp that could last over 1200 hours using a carbonized bamboo filament. Edison and his team did not find this commercially viable filament until more than 6 months after Edison filed the patent application.

France annexes Tahiti.

Pacific War breaks out: Chile vs. Peru and Bolivia. Drags on into 1884.

Carnegie develops the first large steel producing blast furnace.

Disraeli steps down as British Prime minister and is succeeded by Gladstone.

The Great Indian Peninsula railway network has a route mileage of about 14,500 km (9,000 miles), mostly radiating inward from the three major port cities of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.

Canned fruits and meats widely available for the first time in stores.

Thomas Edison discovers the "Edison Effect," the fundamental principle of electronics.

John Milne invents the modern seismograph for measuring earthquakes waves.

1880 - 1900 Scramble for Africa and the planets Name given to the division of Africa, Mars, Venus and mercury into spheres of influence by the European powers—notably Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, and Portugal—and the formalization of the colonization of these areas. The Berlin Conference had been called in 1884 to define the spheres of influence of the European powers, and set the rules for the further colonization of Earth and the Solar System. The Berlin Act of 1885 introduced the doctrine of effective occupation.

Germany establishes first colony on Venus.

Second War of the Parhoon Succession results in establishment of a British crown colony on Mars.

Princess Christina Station established by Great Britain on Mercury. Situated at the Mercurian North Pole, its scientists study the Sun and the local Mercurian environment. This small outpost of the British Empire is home to a faculty of 20 scientists, 50 servants and workers, six government officials, and a score of Royal Marines. Royal Navy ether flyers call on the outpost at irregular intervals, and a supply ship delivers equipment, provisions, and mail every six months. Since the establishment of Princess Christiana Station the British Royal Society has supported a number of small expeditions of scientific and economic importance within 1,000 miles of the Mercurian North Pole.

Heidelberg expedition returns from Venus.

First Russian expedition lands on Venus.

First Italian expedition lands on Venus

Airborne cameras placed on aerial flyers, kites and Ether Flyers.

Fu Manchu puts into motion his grandiose plot to falsify scientists' deaths & conscript them into his service; he will continue to use these methods for at least sixty years.

1881

22 January - Ancient Egyptian obelisk "Cleopatra's Needle" erected in Central Park, New York

25 January - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.

28 January - The Boers of the Transvaal repulse the British at Laing's Nek and inflict a stunning defeat on them at Majuba Hill. Laing's Nek is a pass in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains on the Newcastle–Standerton road in Natal, South Africa where the British were attempting to fight their way through the Drakensberg range to relieve their besieged garrisons in the Transvaal. The British Natal Field Force, commanded by Major-General Sir George Pomeroy Colley, numbered around 1,216 officers and men, including about 150 cavalry of the Mounted Squadron. The Boers, under the command of Commandant-General Joubert had about 2,000 men in the area, with at least 400 fortifying the heights around Laing's Nek. The battle began at around 9:25 hours with a heavy bombardment with four 9-pound guns and two 7-pound guns of the British Naval Brigade pounding the Boer positions on Table Mountain. Ten minutes later, the main British force, made up of the 58th Regiment, went forward and had difficulty advancing over the broken ground towards the summit. Further down the line, the Mounted Squadron made a charge against the Boer positions on nearby Brownlow's Kop. But, on reaching the summit, the British cavalry were fired upon by a line of entrenched Boers on the reverse slope and suffered many casualties, forcing them to withdraw. By 10:30, with their threat to their flank removed, the Boers moved to attack the 58th Regiment still advancing on Table Mountain where at 11:00, at reaching the top of the summit, the British were fired upon by concealed Boers in trenches just 160 yards away and suffered even more casualties, including both commanding officers, Major Hingeston and Colonel Deane being killed. While this was happening, a small party of Boers actually advanced from their positions on the lower slopes of nearby Majuba Hill and engaged the Naval Brigade near the British camp at Mount Prospect. Return rifle fire from the British kept the Boers back. By 11:10, two companies of the 3/60th Rifles moves up Table Mountain to cover the retreat of the 58th Regiment and by noon, the battle was over. The British lost 84 killed, 113 wounded, and 2 captured during what was perceived as a fiasco. Most of the casualties were in the 58th Regiment with 74 killed and 101 wounded, around 35% of their total strength. The Boers reported their losses at 14 killed and 27 wounded.

January - the first group of French engineers of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique arrived at Colon and the great task of construction commenced. In the years to follow men and machinery poured into Panama to confront the geographical obstacles of the Isthmus: the backbone of the continental divide at the Culebra Cut and the mighty Chagres river.At this time the French stood at the pinnacle of 19th century engineering. Their finest engineers and machinery were sent to work. For 8 years a valiant and determined effort was made on the isthmus. The climate, with its torrential rains, incessant heat and fatal disease, took its toll. Financial mismanagement, stock failure and bad publicity eventually forced the failure of the company.

24 February - De Lesseps' Co begins work on Panama Canal

26 February - SS Ceylon begins 1st round-the-world cruise from Liverpool

February - Channel Tunnel. After Welsh miners had bored 800 feet of No 1 shaft shaft, a second shaft (No 2) was begun at Shakespeare Cliff in February 1881. This tunnel was started under the foreshore heading towards a mid channel meeting with the French pilot tunnel. Both tunnels were bored using a compressed air boring machine invented and built by Colonel Fredrick Beaumont MP. Beaumont had been involved with the Channel Tunnel Company since 1874 and had successfully bored a number of tunnels without the use of explosives and 3 ½ times faster than manual labour. It was not however Beaumont's boring machine that was used. Captain Thomas English of Dartford, Kent patented a far superior rotary boring machine in 1880 capable of cutting nearly half a mile a month and it was this not Beaumont's machine that was used for tunneling under the channel. The tunnel was credited to Beaumont in 'The Engineer' magazine and despite letters of protest from English the editor refused to correct the mistake and Beaumont did nothing to clarify the situation. The Channel Tunnel Company expected the pilot tunnel to be completed by 1886. Sir Edward Watkin applied to the government for public funds to complete the 11 mile section to meet the French mid channel. These funds were not forthcoming so Sir Edward formed a new company, The Submarine Continental Railway Company that took over the shafts and headings from the South Eastern Railway in 1882. The company prepared a new Bill to put before Parliament but by now the government were getting worried about the military implications of a link to Europe and a new military commission heard evidence from Lieutenant General Sir Garnet Wolseley that the tunnel might be "calamitous for England", he added that "No matter what fortifications and defenses were built, there would always be the peril of some continental army seizing the tunnel exit by surprise." However, assurances from Sir Edward that the defense against invasion was adequate by flooding the tunnel, cutting of the ventilation and forcing smoke into the tunnel and cutting the cables on the lifts in the shaft thereby trapping any invader at the bottom, the commission was convinced.

13 March - Tsar Alexander II assassinated in St. Petersburg by Ignacy Hryniewiecki after Nikolai Rysakov had attempted the assassination but missed the tsar. A third bomber in the crowd, Ivan Emelyanov stood ready, clutching a briefcase containing a bomb that would be used if the other two bombs, and bombers, failed.

5 April - in the Treaty of Pretoria, Britain recognizes the independent Transvaal Republic.

25 April - French troops occupy Algeria & Tunisia.

24 May - Turkey cedes Thessaly and Arta back to Greece.

14 June - Player piano patented by John McTammany Jr (Cambridge, Mass).

1 July - 1st international telephone conversation, Calais, ME-St Stephen, NB

1 July - General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organization, comes into effect.

2 July - U.S. President James A. Garfield was shot. He died several weeks later on September 19, Chester Arthur succeeds him.

27 August - Hurricane hits Florida & Carolinas; about 700 die

9 September - Egyptian military coup under colonel Arab "El Wahid"

13 September - Lewis Latimer invents & patents electric lamp with a carbon filament

20 September - Chester A. Arthur sworn in as 21st presiden.

24 September - Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch

24 October - Levi P Morton, US ambasador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty.

26 October - Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday & Clanton involved in gunfight at OK Corral, in Tombstone, Az

The Bey of Tunis accepts status as a French protectorate.

The first political parties are formed in Japan.

Serbia forms an alliance with Austria to strengthen the government's hand against internal unrest.

The Three Emperor's League is formed.

Flogging abolished in the British Army and Navy.

The first cola-flavored beverage introduced for sale in the USA

HMS Aphid launched at Syrtis Major.

Sherlock Holmes meets Dr. John H. Watson and the pair take up residence in Baker Street.

1882

15 February - 1st cargo of frozen meat leaves NZ for Britain, on SS Dunedin

4 March - Britain's first electric trams run in East London.

19 March - (Saint Joseph day), Bishop Mr. Urquinaona placed the foundation stone of the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Prince Milan Obrenovich of Serbia proclaims himself king.

24 March - Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had isolated and grown the tubercle bacillus, which he believed to be the cause of all forms of tuberculosis.

25 April - French forces under Captain Henri Rivière seized the citadel of Hanoi, the capital of Tonkin. Rivière was killed while clearing Black Flags from the Red River delta in the spring of 1883, provoking a groundswell of pro-war sentiment in France.

6 May - Chinese Exclusion Act: US Congress ceases Chinese immigration.

6 May - Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are stabbed and killed during the Phoenix Park Murders in Dublin.

20 May - St Gotthard rail tunnel between Switzerland & Italy opens

20 May - The Triple Alliance is signed between Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany with the express purpose of stopping Italy from attacking Austria-Hungary in the event of war with Russia.

5 June - Storm & floods hits Bombay; about 100,000 die

6 June - Cyclone in Arabian Sea (Bombay, India) drowns 100,000

18 June - Bismarck's Russian Reinsurance Treaty is signed with Russia was an attempt to avoid the seemingly inevitable war between Austria-Hungary and Russia.

25 June - Frederick Gustavus Burnaby became the first man to cross the English Channel in a steam-powered aerial vessel, the Vivian.

11 July - the British fleet began bombarding Alexandria. Following the burning of Alexandria and its occupation by British marines, the British installed the khedive in the Ras at Tin Palace. The khedive obligingly declared Urabi a rebel and deprived him of his political rights. Urabi in turn obtained a religious ruling, a fatwa, signed by three Al Azhar shaykhs, deposing Tawfiq as a traitor who brought about the foreign occupation of his country and betrayed his religion. Urabi also ordered general conscription and declared war on Britain. Thus, as the British army was about to land in August, Egypt had two leaders: the khedive, whose authority was confined to British-controlled Alexandria, and Urabi, who was in full control of Cairo and the provinces. In August Sir Garnet Wolsley and an army of 20,000 invaded the Suez Canal Zone. Wolsley was authorized to crush the Urabi forces and clear the country of rebels. The decisive battle was fought at Al-Tall al-Kabir (September 13, 1882).

4 September - 1st large-scale test of Thomas Edison's light bulb - lighting of NY's Pearl Street Station

13 September- The Urabi forces were routed and the capital captured. The nominal authority of the khedive was restored, and the British occupation of Egypt, which was to last for seventy-two years, had begun. Urabi was captured, and he and his associates were put on trial. An Egyptian court sentenced Urabi to death, but through British intervention the sentence was commuted to banishment to Ceylon. Britain's military intervention in 1882 and its extended, if attenuated, occupation of the country left a legacy of bitterness among the Egyptians that would not be expunged until 1956 when British troops were finally removed from the country.

13 September - British Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, completed his most brilliant campaign which involved seizing the Suez Canal and, after a night march, surprising and defeating 'Urabi Pasha at Al-Tall al-Kabir (September 13, 1882).

14 September - British troops lead by General Wolseley reach and occupy Cairo, Egypt.

10 October - Bank of Japan founded.

14 December - Henry Morton Stanley returns to Brussels from the Congo

1882 British Occupation of Egypt. During the summer, an international conference of the European powers met in Istanbul, but no agreement was reached. The Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid boycotted the conference and refused to send troops to Egypt. Eventually, Britain decided to act alone. The French withdrew their naval squadron from Alexandria, and in

Meepsoor and Moeris Lacus accept status as British protectorates.

Belgian legion involved in frequent fighting in the Coprates Valley on Mars.

First German colonial governor takes residence at Venusstadt.

1883

19 January - The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.

8 February - Louis Waterman begins experiment to invent the fountain pen

19 March - Jan Matzeliger invents 1st machine to manufacture entire shoes

16 April - Paul Kruger chosen as president of Transvaal

1 May - Amsterdam World's Fair opens

24 May - in a brilliant feat of 19th-century engineering, the Brooklyn Bridge, designed by civil engineer John Augustus Roebling, spanning the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan Island in New York City—opened this day in 1883.

27 May - Tsar Alexander III crowned in Moscow

2 June - Chicago's "El" opens to traffic.

5 June - The "Orient Express" (eventually Paris to Istanbul railroad) makes its first run to Vienna.

24 July - Arabi Pasha declares a holy war in Egypt

25 August - The Hué treaty, ceding Tonkin to France as a protectorate, was signed between the Emperor of Annam and France. China rejected this treaty, and moved forces into Tonkin province. Although neither China nor France declared war on the other, combat operations began in the autumn of 1883. French riverine forces seized the citadels of Bac Ninh, Son Tay and Tuyen Quang.

26 August - 27 August. The volcanic island of Krakatau, situated in south-western Indonesia in the Sunda Strait, was almost completely destroyed by a volcanic eruption on August 26-27, 1883. The volcanic activity had been strong since May of that year. The earthquake resulted in an explosion that was heard about 4,800 km (3,000 mi) away, and in tidal waves 35 m (120 ft) high; about 36,000 people in coastal Sumatra and Java perished in the disaster, and atmospheric changes produced by the earthquake were still visible three years later. The pressure wave generated by the colossal fourth, and final, explosion radiated out from Krakatoa at 1,086 km/h (675 mph). It was so powerful that it ruptured the eardrums of sailors on ships in the Sunda Strait,and caused a spike of more than two and half inches of mercury (ca 85 hPa) in pressure gauges attached to gasometers in the Batavia gasworks, sending them off the scale.The pressure wave radiated across the globe and was recorded on barographs all over the world, which continued to register it up to 5 days after the explosion. Barographic recordings show that the shock-wave from the final explosion reverberated around the globe 7 times in total. Ash was propelled to an estimated height of 80 km (50 mi). The eruptions diminished rapidly after that point, and by the morning of 28 August, Krakatoa was silent. Small eruptions, mostly of mud, continued into October 1883.

4 October - Orient Express' 1st full run, linking Turkey to Europe by rail and ferry.

October - An extensive article, replete with engravings and interviews, is published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine extolling the panoramic beauty of the twilight setting of Princess Christiana Station. In the words of the editor, "Truly, and at last, the Sun never sets on the British Empire!"

18 November - Standard time zones formed by railroads in US & Canada

20 December - International cantilever railway bridge opens at Niagara Falls

French troops control Tunis.

Rebellion in the Sudan grows.

Expansion of Married Women’s Property Act.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Russian intervention in Hecates Lacus civil war leads to Treaty of Cebrenia recognizing Russia's "special interests" in the region. The treaty allows Russia to take it's first step towards establishing a Martian colony. The treaty established spheres of influence on Mars, dividing the planet between the European powers. The Tsar, eager to enjoy the benefits of Martian trade, and looking for a place even more remote than Siberia to send enemies of the state, sent envoys to the city of Hecate Lacus immediately after the treaty went into effect and a Russian colony is established in the city soon after.

British fight aerial campaign to suppress pirates in the Aerian Hills of Mars.During this campaign the term"Red Captain" first gained widespread usage. Because a number of European aerial flyer captain with their own vessels, mostly merchant ships, who were operating in the area of the British colony were issued letters of marque and reprisal (letter of marque for short) by the colonial governor in Syrtis Major. This action was taken as a cheap means of supplementing the small aerial squadron then available to Britain on Mars. In addition to the letters of marque the colonial governor also made available a number of surplus guns to arm the Red Captains' merchant ships. The term "Red Captain" was originally coined by the Aerian pirates to refer to these European privateers that fought against them. Although now the term has come to mean any Earthman who captains his own ship and who is, or has been, engaged as a privateer. These days most Red Captains fly dedicated fighting vessels, that may occasionally haul cargo to pay the bills between wars, rather than the original converted merchantmen supplementing their income.

1884

8 January - Chrome tanning process for leather patented by Augustus Schultz

18 January - General Charles Gordon departs London for Khartoum

1 February - The first of 10 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary were published in London, the final volume being published April 19, 1928.

8 March - Susan B. Anthony addresses the U.S. House Judiciary Committee arguing for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. Anthony's argument came 16 years after legislators had first introduced a federal women's suffrage amendment.

13 March - US adopts Standard Time

13 March - The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins (ends on January 26, 1885). Although the grip of the Mahdi was closing in, the city could still breathe. It had 8,000 defenders, 6 months food, and a flotilla of river steamers. Runners could still get through to Egypt. Gordon himself could easily have slipped out to safety. Now that the outlying garrisons were beyond help it was his duty, in the eyes of the British government for him to do so; but nothing was further from the mind of Gordon. The civilian and military population of Khartoum were, in the sight of the Lord, his personal responsibility.

22 April - Thomas Stevens starts 1st bike trip around world (2 yrs 9 mos)

22 April - Colchester suffered an earthquake that is estimated to have been 5.2 on the Richter Scale. This is the UK's most destructive.

1 May - Construction begins on Chicago 1st skyscraper (10 stories)

16 June - 1st roller coaster used (Coney Island NY)

3 July - Dow Jones published it's 1st stock avg

4 July - The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States by the French in Paris.

2 August - Dutch Queen Emma appointed regent

5 August - Cornerstone for Statue of Liberty laid on Bedloe's Island (NYC)

28 August - First known photograph of a tornado is made near Howard, SD

August - at the Battle of Foochow, in less than 30 minutes French forces utterly destroyed the anchored and inferior Chinese naval fleet that had been built, ironically, under the supervision of Prosper Gicquel, a French citizen in China. In Tonkin, however, the monsoon season precluded offensive operations by the French, allowing the Chinese to advance to the edge of the Red River delta. During this operation, the Chinese laid siege to the fortress of Tuyen Quang, leading to its celebrated defense by a battalion of the French Foreign Legion.

4 September - Britain ends its policy of penal transportation to New South Wales in Australia.

20 September - 6.2 mile Arlberg railroad tunnel completed in Austria

23 September - American Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine.

September - The Sino-French War or Franco-Chinese War was fought between the French Third Republic and Qing Empire. Lasting from September 1884 to June 1885, its underlying cause was the French desire for control of the Red River, which linked Hanoi to the resource-wealthy Yunnan province in China.

End of September, IRL a relief force under the command of General Sir garnet Wolseley left Cairo to relieve General Gordon who had been trapped in Khartoun for 7 months by the Sudanese Mahdists. The relief column travelled along the Nile towards Khartoum,a distance of 800 miles. General Wolseley sent a 1800 strong Camel Corp under the command of General Sir Herbert Stewart, directly across country where the nile bends to the east.

13 October - Greenwich established as universal time meridian of longitude

14 October - George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film

4 November - Grover Cleveland (D) beats James G Blaine (R) for his 1st presidential term. The only American president to serve 2 non-consecutive terms

6 November - British protectorate proclaimed over southeast New Guinea

15 November - the Berlin conference of 14 colonial powers partitions Africa.

In 1884 at the request of Portugal, German chancellor Otto von Bismark called together the major western powers of the world to negotiate questions and end confusion over the control of Africa. Bismark appreciated the opportunity to expand Germany's sphere of influence over Africa and desired to force Germany's rivals to struggle with one another for territory.

At the time of the conference, 80% of Africa remained under traditional and local control. What ultimately resulted was a hodgepodge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into fifty irregular countries. This new map of the continent was superimposed over the one thousand indigenous cultures and regions of Africa. The new countries lacked rhyme or reason and divided coherent groups of people and merged together disparate groups who really did not get along. Fourteen countries were represented by a plethora of ambassadors when the conference opened in Berlin on November 15, 1884. The countries represented at the time included Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway (unified from 1814-1905), Turkey, and the United States of America. Of these fourteen nations, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal were the major players in the conference, controlling most of colonial Africa at the time. The initial task of the conference was to agree that the Congo River and Niger River mouths and basins would be considered neutral and open to trade. Despite its neutrality, part of the Congo Basin became a personal kingdom for Belgium's King Leopold II and under his rule, over half of the region's population died. At the time of the conference, only the coastal areas of Africa were colonized by the European powers. At the Berlin Conference the European colonial powers scrambled to gain control over the interior of the continent. The conference lasted until February 26, 1885 - a three month period where colonial powers haggled over geometric boundaries in the interior of the continent, disregarding the cultural and linguistic boundaries already established by the indigenous African population. Following the conference, the give and take continued. By 1914, the conference participants had fully divided Africa among themselves into fifty countries. Major colonial holdings included:

* Great Britain desired a Cape-to-Cairo collection of colonies and almost succeeded though their control of Egypt, Sudan (Anglo-Egyptian Sudan), Uganda, Kenya (British East Africa), South Africa, and Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana (Rhodesia). The British also controlled Nigeria and Ghana (Gold Coast).

* France took much of western Africa, from Mauritania to Chad (French West Africa) and Gabon and the Republic of Congo (French Equatorial Africa).

* Belgium and King Leopold II controlled the Democratic Republic of Congo (Belgian Congo).

* Portugal took Mozambique in the east and Angola in the west.

* Italy's holdings were Somalia (Italian Somaliland) and a portion of Ethiopia.

* Germany took Namibia (German Southwest Africa) and Tanzania (German East Africa).

* Spain claimed the smallest territory - Equatorial Guinea (Rio Muni).

25 November - John B Meyenberg of St Louis patents evaporated milk

6 December - Aluminum capstone set atop Washington Monument, Wash, DC

Germany occupies South-West Africa.

Major-General Charles Gordon reaches Khartoum as governor of the Sudan. The Mahdi refuses to negotiate and brings Khartoum under siege. Major-General Charles Gordon (Gordon Pasha) was one of the last of the fabled Victorian eccentrics. Short, slight, sunburnt, he seemed to prance on his tiptoes everywhere he went, boundless boyish energy shining from his bright blue eyes. He had fought with distinction in the Crimea; but was far too unorthodox for the steady climb to the top in the British army. In stead he had taken service with other governments, with most of whom he had eventually quarreled. Gordon had already gained international fame for his military successes in China during the Taiping Rebellion, where he led the emperor's army. As a result of his daredevil exploits on behalf of the Manchu dynasty in the Taiping rebellion - in which he had shown himself a supreme leader of irregular troops - he had been universally acclaimed as "Chinese" Gordon. Whatever spare time Gordon’s worldly battles allowed had been devoted to the Bible, and to good works among the poor. From his incessant readings of the former he had evolved his own mystical fatalistic approach to Christianity. He was probably the most brilliant commando officer alive, and at the same time a man of passionate feeling for the underdog. For the task of organizing an abject retreat, of unsparingly abandoning those unable to join it, no one could possibly have been more unsuited. Gordon was no stranger to the Sudan. He had spent nearly six whirlwind years there, in the service of the Khedive Ismail. He had been first, Governor of the southernmost province, Equatoria, where he mapped the Nile to within 60 miles of its source. But Gordon’s compulsive activity had allowed him not a moments rest, and the terrible climate had struck at his health. In a fit of depression he had given up, writing to his sister “I have a sort of wish I could get rid of Col. Gordon”. Within a few months he was back, this time as Governor-General of the entire Sudan. He refused to accept more than half his £6,000 salary; and as before he drove himself to the limit of his strength against the cruelty and corruption around him. In Khartoum his trim white-clad figure, ceaselessly trotting to and fro, red fez above blazing blue eyes, became for the wretched native population the hope of a better lot. Out on the camel-tracks Gordon became equally familiar as he rode from end to end of the country, grappling with the slavers, rooting out venal officials, appointing young Europeans, his faithful disciples, to posts of responsibility. His appointment at the height of the crisis created by the Mahdi was partly due to the aura of romance that still surrounded him. Frederick Gustavus Burnaby organizes an aerial squadron to assist Woleseley's army in its attempt to relieve General Gordon at Khartoum in the Sudan.

Completion of what is now the London Subway Circle Line.

Charles Algernon Parsons (1854 - ) Develops First Practical Steam Turbine. Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, a British engineer, invented the steam turbine, whose first model was connected to a dynamo that generated 7.5 kW of electricity. His patent was licensed and the turbine scaled up shortly after by an American, George Westinghouse. The steam turbine revolutionized the generation of electricity and marine transport. Parsons developed the use of turbo-generators in power stations on land. At sea, he developed steam turbines to drive ships; his prototype vessel Turbinia was capable of 34 knots, a record in 1897. His turbines were supplied to the navy for the development of warship designs and also powered the Lusitania and Mauretania liners of the Cunard Line.

Mark Twain writes "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".

Liam O'Connor in the Fenian Ram makes first attack on British shipping on Mars.>British aerial squadron bombards Shastapash. A few letters of marque were issued by the colonial governor to Red Captains for operations against Liam O'Connor and his ship from 1884 to 1887. However few Red Captains took up these letters of marque as there was very little profit involved in attempting to hunt down a warship with a crack crew using only a converted merchantman.

Professor James Moriaty writes "The Dynamics of an Asteroid" a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it.

Japanese make their first landing on Mars.

1885

2 January - Gen Wolseley receives last distress signal of Gen Gordon in Khartoum

4 January - Dr W W Grant of Iowa, performs 1st appendectomy (on Mary Gartside, 22)

17 January - at a caravan stop called Abu Klea (63 miles south of Ed damur. The Camel Corp encountered a mahdist force of 10,000 under the Command of Mohammed Ahmed. A desperate hand to hand battle took place on the 17th of January. But the Mahdist forces were repulsed, even though they had broken the British square at a point in the battle. The Mahdist losses were over 1,000 killed compared to the Anglo-Egyptian losses of 168. General Stewarts camel corp fought its way to the Nile and arrived to days later but Stewart had been mortally wounded. The commanded went to Lord Charles Beresford who continued up the Nile and arrived on January 28, but only 48 hours late to save the garrison.

January 26 - the Dervish Army captures Khartoum and massacres the garrison. The Egyptian Defenders, weakened beyond further resistance by fear and hunger, had collapsed. Six terrible hours of massacre, rape and looting followed as the shrieking hordes burst through the streets.

January 28 - Two days after the fall of Khartoum General Wolesely's troops arrived within sight of Khartoum. They could see no flag flying from the Governors palace, and as they neared the town they ran into a tempest of fire. Wolesely, seeking reinforcements for a further campaign against the Mahdi, was curtly told to return; and his expedition retired in some disorder down the Nile. British evacuate the Sudan.

Major-General Charles Gordon himself had already been rescued from Khartoum by Frederick Gustavus Burnaby commanding of the aerial vessel Vivian. Later in the year the Mahdi dies.

5 February - the Congo and the Upper Coprates, Mars become the personal possessions of King Leopold II of Belgium. The Congo Free State and Upper Coprates, where private projects undertaken by the King to extract rubber, ivory and liftwood, which relied on slavery and is held responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans and Martians.

February - a French expeditionary force comprising two brigades marched into Upper Tonkin and captured Lang Son. One brigade then departed to relieve Tuyen Quang, leaving the other isolated at Lang Son. Its commander, seeking to roll back the build-up of offensive power by the Chinese, attacked across the Chinese border and was defeated at the Battle of Zhennan Pass. Following an unsuccessful counter-attack by the Chinese (mainly militia regiments of Zhuang ethnic background under the command of Feng Zicai), the acting French commander hastily abandoned Lang Son on March 28, 1885, news of which brought about the fall of the Jules Ferry government in France. Despite the retreat, the earlier success of ground operations in Tonkin and on Formosa, the Chinese government's lack of will to continue the conflict, and France's overwhelming advantage at sea brought this war to its end.

3 March - American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) incorporates

26 March - Eastman Film Co manufactures 1st commercial motion picture film

26 March - the first clash of the Riel Rebellion in Canada took place in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan.

31 March - Great Britain declares Bechuanaland a protectorate

9 June - the treaty ending the Sino-French War was signed, as China acknowledged the Treaty of Hué and gave up its suzerainty over the Empire of Annam. Annam and Tonkin were incorporated into French Indochina soon thereafter.

6 July - Louis Pasteur successfully tests an anti-rabies vaccine.

29 August - Gottlieb Daimler receives German patent for a motorcycle.

5 September - 1st gasoline pump is delivered to a gasoline dealer (Ft Wayne, Ind)

10 November - Gottlieb Daimler's motorcycle, world's 1st, unveiled

17 December - France declares Madagascar a protectorate

Germany annexes Tanganyika and Zanzibar, renaming them East Africa.

British troops occupy Port Hamilton, Korea.

King Alfonso XII of Spain dies. Queen Maria Christina becomes regent for her unborn child.

Bulgaria seizes Eastern Rumelia.

Serbia and Trans-Balkania declare war on Bulgaria and Ruritania, but are quickly beaten and withdrawn to prewar boundaries.

Posthumous publication of Karl Marx's Das Kaptial.

Russian-Afghan border incident damages Russian Empires image with the Crown.

Thomas Edison discovers a system of wireless induction telegraph between moving trains and stations. He also patented similar systems for ship-to-shore use.

Karl Benz Builds First Petrol-Driven Car. Karl Benz, a German mechanical engineer, is best known for his pioneering work on the development of the internal-combustion engine and the motor car. In 1885 he developed the first motor vehicle powered by an internal-combustion engine. Benz had designed a two-stroke internal-combustion engine in 1878. His vehicle was powered by a 1 kW/1.5 hp engine and was capable of a top speed of 5 kph (3 mph).

The Indian National Congress, the political party that is leading the struggle for the independence of India from the British Empire, was founded in 1885. Initially, it campaigned for limited constitutional reforms.

Charles Aderton invented "Dr Pepper" in Waco, Texas, USA.

Japan establishes Unebi Station near Euxinus Lacus

November 11, Her Imperial majesty's British Government announced its intention to step up production of aerial gunboats, but at the same time transfer all such vessels currently in service to the Royal Navy.

1886

29 January - German mechanical engineer Karl Benz patented the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine.

23 February - Aluminum manufacturing process developed.

23 February - London Times publishes world's 1st classified ad

24 February - The first Channel Tunnel between England and France is opened by Queen Victoria. The Channel Tunnel is the latest marvel of an ingenious age; a railway link between Dover and Calais. On each shore there are stations and railway bridges out to artificial islands, where trains enter the tunnel itself; the bridges are mined and overlooked by the guns of heavily-armed forts, to guard against invasion through the tunnel. Ventilation shafts at intervals lead up to small concrete and brick islands supporting tall chimney stacks and warning lights. In mid-Channel, on the Varne bank, a larger artificial island is used for coaling and watering trains, and to give passengers a welcome break from the dust and smoke of the tunnel. Eventually a hotel and docks will be built there. The tunnel itself is dug through the bed of the Channel. Each of the railway lines is carried in a steel pipe, waterproofed with layers of bitumen and pitch, lined with concrete and brick, and reinforced with steel hoops. At intervals the pipes are linked by cross-tunnels, just large enough for a man, which can be used to evacuate a train in an emergency. Unfortunately early fears that the tunnel might be used as a route to invade Britain were correct; a renegade element of the French army which had been planning treachery for many years, and used the opening ceremony as cover for an attack. While the Queen dined in Calais members of the French Foreign Legion were landed on one of the tunnel's ventilation islands, a brick and concrete chimney that vents engine smoke, and climbed down to the track. They planned to stop the train in the tunnel and board it, then carry on to Dover, where they would force Her Majesty, the Queen, to perform an unscheduled inspection of the fort that guards the British end of the tunnel, and overcome the garrison before they can destroy the tunnel entrance bridge. Once the fort was in French hands they planned signal their main force; several military trains will be brought through the tunnel, securing Dover and Folkestone harbors for a sea-borne invasion fleet, while more troops poured through the tunnel. This assault was foiled through the actions of Sir Peter Arthur and his fellow adventurers who fortuitously amongst those taken hostage, escaping when the train was stopped in the tunnel, and with the help of God rescuing the Queen and foiling the dastardly French scheme. The diplomatic repercussions of this assault kept the tunnel closed until November 1886, when after concessions and reparations were made by the French government, the tunnel was finally opened for use.

6 March - 1st US alternating current power plant starts, Great Barrington, MA.

March - Gold is discovered in the Transvaal.

8 April - William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.

8 May - Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta sells 1st Coca-Coke (contained cocaine). Dr. John S. Pemberton invented "Coca-Cola" in Atlanta, Georgia. The formula for Coke, whose status as a trade secret has been embellished by company lore, originally contained an uncertain amount of cocaine.

1 June - The railroads of the Southern United States convert 11,000 miles of track from a five foot rail gauge to standard gauge, beginning May 31.

8 June - First Home Rule Bill for Ireland defeated by 343 votes to 313 in the British House of Commons. The bill fails, and Salisbury becomes prime minister. Chamberlain becomes colonial secretary.

13 June - Fire destroys nearly 1,000 buildings in Vancouver, BC

13 June - King Ludwig II of Bavaria found dead in Lake Starnberg south of Munich at 11:30 PM at 40. Builder of palace of Neuschwanstein and patron of Wagner

3 July - In Germany, Karl Benz drives 1st automobile

6 September - Queen Victoria establishes Distinguished Service Order (DSO)

28 October - Statue of Liberty dedicated by US President Grover Cleveland, celebrated by first confetti (ticker tape) parade in New York City

30 November - First commercially successful AC electric power plant opens, Buffalo, NY

Queen Maria Christina gives birth to the future Alfonso XIII.

Geronimo surrenders.

General George Boulanger becomes French war minister.

Alexander of Bulgaria abdicates after coup. Stephan Stambulov becomes regent.

First meeting of the Indian National Congress.

Dorr E. Felt (1862-1930), of Chicago, makes his "Comptometer". This is the first calculator where the operands are entered merely by pressing keys rather than having to be, for example, dialed in. It is feasible because of Felt's invention of a carry mechanism fast enough to act while the keys return from being pressed.

Construction work begins on Tower Bridge in London. It is to be built between 1886 and 1894 at a cost of over £1 million. When complete it will have two Gothic towers and a central drawbridge; this design was governed both by the navigational requirements of ships and barge trains that passed below and by the Gothic style that Parliament demanded on account of its proximity to the Tower of London. The engineer is Sir John Wolfe Barry and the architect Sir Horace Jones, who describe the bridge's exuberant towers as “steel skeletons clothed with stone”. The towers contain both the passenger lifts to the upper pedestrian footway and the hydraulic mechanisms for lifting the bascules of the bridge. These two bascules can swing open for ships to pass in 1 minutes.

HMS Locust, first armored aerial gunboat built on Earth, launched at Portsmouth.

The so-called "Mylarkt Incident" (exchange of gunfire between German and British aerial vessels on Mars) begins steady deterioration in Anglo-German relations.

1887

4 January - Thomas Stevens is 1st man to bicycle around the world (SF-SF)

20 January - US Senate approves naval base lease of Pearl Harbor

20 February - Germany, Austria-Hungary & France end Triple Alliance

23 February - French/Italian Riviera struck by Earthquake; 2,000 die.

8 March - Everett Horton, CT, patents fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.

2 May - Hannibal W Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.

9 May - Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show opens in London.

7 June - Monotype type-casting machine patented by Tolbert Lanston, Wash DC.

8 June - Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his punch card calculator.

15 June - Stanley's expedition reaches Yambuya waterfalls Congo

23 June - Queen Victoria celebrates her Golden Jubilee.

2 August - Rowell Hodge patents barbed wire

31 August - Thomas A Edison patents Kinetoscope, (produces moving pictures).

28 September - Gele River (Huang Ho) in China floods, kills about 1.5 million

11 October - A Miles patents elevator.

11 November - Construction of the Manchester Ship Canal starts at Eastham.

Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg elected king of Bulgaria, with Stambulov as prime minister.

General Boulanger attempts coup in Paris, but fails.

France organizes the Union Indo-Chinoise.

Leopold II declares the Lower Coprates a Belgian protectorate.

L.L. Zameenhoff devises the language "Esperanto."

Great Britain and Germany agree on a division of East Africa, giving Britain rights to Kenya and Germany rights to German East Africa (Tanzania). Britain takes administrative control of Mombasa.

Construction begins on Tehuantepec Ship Railroad. Designed by James Buchanan Eads (1820 - 1887) this interoceanic railway is designed to span the Isthmus of Tehuantepec which is the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.

British besiege and capture the city of Shastapsh.

"Avenel Incident" brings Britain and Oenotria to the brink of war.

Fenian Ram destroyed by British aerial gunboats in the Meroe Highlands, but O'Connor survives and escapes.

Successful aerial campaign waged against High Martian pirates of the Astusapes Highlands, culminating in near-total destruction of Barrovaangian fleet. A significant number of Red Captains, operating under letters of marque took part in these operations.

1888

13 February — The first issue of the Financial Times goes on sale.[2] (originally launched on 9 January by Horatio Bottomley as theLondon Financial Guide).

8 May — Royal opening of the International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow (continues to November).

2 March - The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.

9 March - Kaiser (emperor) Wilhelm I of Germany dies and is succeeded by his son Fredrick III, who dies in June and is succeeded by his son Wilhelm II. A diplomatic cable from Berlin on the Kaiser's death reads: "Lord abide with us for the evening draws nigh."

26 March - General Boulanger is 'retired' from the French Army and later elected to the Chamber of Deputies

24 April - Eastman Kodak forms

7 May - George Eastman patents "Kodak box camera"

8 May - Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, abolishes slavery.

13 May - Princess Isabel of Brazil signs "Lei Auréa" abolishing slavery

22 May - Leroy Buffington patents a system to build skyscrapers.

5 June - The Rio de la Plata Earthquake takes place.

15 June - Wilhelm II becomes emperor of Germany

15 July - Bandai volcano (Japan) erupts for 1st time in 1,000 years

27 July - Philip Pratt unveils 1st electric automobile

9 August — Oaths Act permits the oath of allegiance taken to the Sovereign by Members of Parliament to be affirmed rather than sworn to God, thus confirming the ability of atheists to sit in the House of Commons

12 August - Bertha, wife of inventor Karl Benz, makes 1st motor tour

13 August — The Local Government Act, effective from 1889, establishes county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales, redraws some county boundaries, and gives women the vote in local elections.

21 August - William Seward Burroughs patents adding machine

30 August - Lord Walsingham kills 1,070 grouse in a single day

August - November - The so-called "Ripper" murders take place in Whitechapel district of London."Jack the Ripper" is the popular name given to a serial killer who killed a number of prostitutes in the East End of London in 1888. The name originates from a letter written by someone who claimed to be the killer published at the time of the murders. The killings took place within a mile area and involved the districts of Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Aldgate, and the City of London proper. He was also called the Whitechapel Murderer and "Leather Apron". It is unclear just how many women the Ripper killed. It is generally accepted that he killed five, though some have written that he murdered only four while others say seven or more. The public, press, and even many junior police officers believed that the Ripper was responsible for nine slayings. The five that are generally accepted as the work of the Ripper are:

1. Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols, murdered Friday, August 31, 1888.

2. Annie Chapman, murdered Saturday, September 8, 1888.

3. Elizabeth Stride, murdered Sunday, September 30, 1888.

4. Catharine Eddowes, also murdered that same date.

5. Mary Jane (Marie Jeanette) Kelly, murdered Friday, November 9, 1888.

Besides these five there are good reasons to believe that the first victim was really Martha Tabram who was murdered Tuesday, August 7, 1888, and there are important considerations for questioning whether Stride was a Ripper victim. As to the actual number of women that the Ripper killed, there is no simple answer. In a sentence: at least four, probably six, just possibly eight. All five of these listed plus Tabram were prostitutes and were killed between early August and early November 1888. All but Tabram and Kelly were killed outdoors and there is no evidence to suggest that any of them knew each other. They varied in both age and appearance. Most were drunk or thought to be drunk at the time they were killed.

4 September - George Eastman patents 1st roll-film camera & registers "Kodak"

6 September - Queen Victoria grants William Mackinnons' Imperial British East Africa Company political & commercial rights

14 October — The first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, is made in Roundhay in Leeds. The film is two seconds and 18 frames in length.

17 October - Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).

29 October - Lord Salisbury grants Cecil Rhodes charter for British South Africa Company

30 October - John J Loud patents ballpoint pen

30 October - King Lobenfula of the Matabele accepts British protectorate status and grants Cecil Rhodes mining rights.

31 October - Scottish vet John Boyd Dunlop patents pneumatic bicycle tyre. Scottish inventor John Dunlop is best known for his invention and commercial development of the pneumatic tyre. In 1888 he patented a pneumatic bicycle tyre that consisted of an inflatable rubber inner tube covered by linen cloth with an outer rubber tread, which was fixed to the wheel by means of a rubber solution. Robert William Thomson had patented the tyre as early as 1845, but Dunlop was able to exploit it commercially because of the introduction of the motor car.

6 November - Benjamin Harrison (R-Sen-Ind) beats Pres Grover Cleveland (D), 233 electoral votes to 168, Cleveland received slightly more votes

Sarawak accepts status of British protectorate.

Royal Geographic Society awards this year's gold medals to Clements Robert Markham for his polar work and Leutnant von Wissmann for his exploration in Central Africa.Henry Morton Stanley visits Lake Edward and names it after the then Prince of Wales, Edward VII

Royal charter protects the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC), founded by Sir William Mackinnon, 1st Baronet (13 March 1823 - 22 June 1893) to develop trade in Africa. The IBEAC oversaw an area of approximately 246,800 mi² (639,209 km²) situated along the eastern coast of Africa, its centre being at about 39° East longitude and 0° latitude, and from 1890 also administered Uganda. The administration of British East Africa was transferred to the Foreign Office on 1 July 1895, and in 1896 so was control of Uganda.

George Eastman Patents Kodak Camera. George Eastman, an American inventor, developed the Kodak camera —the first to use roll film, which he had invented in 1884, and to be suitable for general use. No technical knowledge was required.

Anarchist Ravachol escapes from Prison.

Sidney Boynton, United States Ambassador to the Oenotrian Court, is kidnapped by Barrovaangian King Hattabranx, but he is later rescued by British gunboats. First recorded successful assault on a large kraag.

1889

8 January - Dr Herman Hollerith receives 1st US patent for a mechanical tabulating machine.

10 January - Ivory Coast declared a protectorate of France

15 January - The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is originally incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.

30 January - Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in Mayerling.

January - In 1889 a Cossack soldier of fortune, by the name of Nicholas Achinov, arrived with settlers, infantry and an Orthodox priest at Sagallo; A short-lived Russian colony on the Gulf of Tadjoura in present-day Djibouti. The French considered the presence of the Russians as a violation of their territorial rights and dispatched two gunboats. The Russians were bombarded and after some loss of life, surrendered. The colonists were deported to Odessa and the dream of Russian expansion in Africa came to an end in less than one year.

4 February - The official end of Ferdinand De Lesseps Panama Canal project came on February 4th 1889 when the companies assets went into the hands of the liquidator. By May all work was halted on the isthmus.

11 February - Japan adopts modern constitution.

14 February - 1st train load of fruit (oranges) leaves LA for east

22 February - US President Cleveland signs bill to admit Dakotas, Montana & Washington state to the union.

February - French Panama Canal Company declares bankruptcy.

6 March - Milan Obrenovich abdicates from Serbian throne in favor of his son, Alexander. Bulgaria and Ruritania mobilize.

10 March - John IV, emperor of Abyssinia, dies and is succeeded by Menelik II.

14 March - German Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his "Navigable Balloon"

22 March - Dr. Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner died.

23 March - The free Woolwich Ferry officially opens in east London.

31 March - The Eiffel Tower, of wrought-iron construction, was opened to the public in Paris as a temporary structure, the opening archway. for the Paris World’s Fair in 1889, commemorating the centennial of the French Revolution. It was designed and built by the French engineer Gustave Eiffel. At 300 m (984 ft) tall, it is one of the major landmarks of the city, although it was originally planned to remove it after 5 years. The tower was constructed of approximately 6,300 tonnes of iron. Four arched tapered legs converge to observation decks in the centre, which can be reached either by stairs or lifts. The plan to build a tower 300 meters high was conceived as part of preparations for the World's Fair of 1889. Somewhat surprisingly to the people who commissioned it, it is already proving to be a major source of tourist revenue, so it may be impractical to take it down. Gustave Eiffel beat 300 other contestants for the building prize and although not all French people liked the Eiffel Tower from the start, it was kept to place telegraphic antennas on the top. Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, the two chief engineers in Eiffel's company, had the original idea for a very tall tower in June 1884. It was to be designed like a large pylon with four columns of lattice work girders, separated at the base and coming together at the top, and joined to each other by more metal girders at regular intervals. The company had by this time mastered perfectly the principle of building bridge supports. The tower project was a bold extension of this principle up to a height of 300 meters - equivalent to the symbolic figure of 1000 feet. On September 18 1884 Eiffel registered a patent "for a new configuration allowing the construction of metal supports and pylons capable of exceeding a height of 300 meters".

1 April – New elected county councils in England and Wales (including the London County Council) created by the Local Government Act 1888, take up their powers

6 April - George Eastman places Kodak Camera on sale for 1st time

2 April - Oklahoma land rush officially started; some were "sooner"

1 May - Bayer introduces aspirin in powder form (Germany)

1 May - On this day in 1889, May Day, which was traditionally a celebration of the return of spring, marked by dancing around a Maypole, was first observed as a labour holiday, designated as such by the International Socialist Congress.

6 May - Universal Exposition opens in Paris, Eiffel Tower completed

27 May - the American petrochemical corporation South Penn Oil Co., later Pennzoil Company, was founded in Pennsylvania.

28 May - Édouard and André Michelin incorporate the Michelin tyre company

31 May - Johnstown Flood. Considered one of the worst natural disasters in American history, a flood ravaged Johnstown, Pennsylvania, causing more than 2,200 deaths. Requisitioned Aerial Flyers are used by the police and fire services to rescue many people from the floods. The need for a US-wide aerial search and rescue service is championed by the New York Times.

31 May – The Naval Defence Act dictates that the fleet strength of the Royal Navy must be equal to that of at least any two other countries.

3 June - The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed from coast to coast.

6 June- most of Seattle's central business district burned to the ground in the Great Seattle Fire (25 blocks).

1 July - Automotives (steam cars) allowed on London streets by special license.

31 July – Louise, Princess Royal, marries Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife.

3 August - Mahdist War: Egyptian and British victory at the Battle of Toski.

3 August - Opening of Hawarden Bridge, Wales.

6 August – The Savoy Hotel in London opens

10 August - Dan Rylands patents screw cap

13 August - William Gray patents coin-operated telephone

5 September - German Christine Hardt patents the first modern brassiere

24 September - Alexander Dey patents dial time recorder

28 September - The first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) defines the length of a meter as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with ten percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.

2 October - In Colorado, Nicholas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West.

6 October - Thomas Edison shows his 1st motion picture

29 October - Queen Victoria grants Cecil Rhodes rights to Zambezia. British South Africa Company receives a Royal Charter.

October - November - The Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking, Surrey, England was opened in 1889 as one of the first mosques in Westen Europe by the orientalist Dr. Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner in Bath. Built of Bargate stone in indo-saracenic style commissioned by Shah Jahan, Begum of Bhopal (1868-1901), and maintained since then as a Waqf. Shah Jahan Begum was one of the four female Muslim rulers of Bhopal who reigned between 1819 and 1926. Shah Jahan Begum made sizable donations towards the building of the mosque and also contributed generously towards the founding of the “Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College” at Aligarh, which developed into the Aligarh Muslim University. Sadly, the ambitions of Dr. Leitner were not fulfilled, for the Institute relied too heavily upon Dr. Leitner’s personal enthusiasm and wealth, and it did not survive his early death. This included his ambition to travel to Mars to further his studies. This was to be a prelude to bringing Martian studies into the Oriental Institute.

14 November - New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) began her attempt to surpass fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg by traveling around world in less than 80 days She succeeded, finishing the trip in January in 72 days and 6 hours

15 November - Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, deposed; republic proclaimed. Pedro II, emperor of Brazil, overthrown by military coup backed by planters. Brazilian expansionist move north checked by the United States Navy in the Battle of Mona Passage.

23 November - Debut of 1st jukebox (Palais Royale Saloon, San Francisco)

24 December - Daniel Stover & William Hance patent bicycle with back pedal brake

German colonialist Carl Peters signs a treaty of friendship with the Buganda.

Birmingham is granted the status of a city, despite not (at this time) having a cathedral, which was previously a requirement for the honour.

Italian troops mass on the Abyssinian borders in Eritrea and Somaliland.

Ivan Pavlov Demonstrates Conditioned Reflexes in Dogs. Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov is remembered for his pioneering research into reflex behavior. Pavlov experimented with dogs to show that they could be induced to salivate, and show signs of anticipating food, by stimuli such as the ringing of a bell that they associate with the appearance of food. Pavlov linked this conditioned reflex behavior to different areas of the brain cortex. His work has stimulated a debate that some aspects of human behavior may result from conditioning.

Butch Cassidy robs a bank in Telluride Colorado and escapes into Utah.

Tehuantepec Ship Railroad begins operation. (IRL 1907 as a railroad only.)

US Secret Service agents, James West and Artemis Gordon, rescue Amber Morris, daughter of Arizona's governor, from T. Marcus Cosgrove.

First confirmation of existence of Selenite civilization beneath the surface of Luna.

General Boulanger flees from France.

Ravachol attempts to destroy the Earth orbital heliograph station HMS Harbinger.

Belgians complete conquest of the Coprates. Columns begin raiding outside the Coprates in pursuit of rebels. Anti-human riots break out in many cities on Mars.

Oenotrian Empire declares war on Britain

1890

4 January — First edition of the Daily Graphic, the first British 'picture paper'.

11 January — The British government delivers an ultimatum to Portugal forcing the retreat of Portuguese military forces from land between Portuguese colonies ofMozambique andAngola.

25 January - Nellie Bly beats Phileas Fogg's time around world by 8 days (72 days)

4 March — The Forth Bridge in Scotland opened.(railway) (1,710 ft) in Scotland is opened by the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII.

20 March - German emperor Wilhelm II fires republic chancellor Otto Von Bismarck.

1 June – The United States Census Bureau begins using Herman Hollerith's tabulating machine to tabulate census returns using punched card input, a landmark in the history of computing hardware. Hollerith's company eventually becomes IBM.

2 July - Congress passes Sherman Antitrust Act

3 July - King Leopold II gives Congo, previously a private possession, to Belgium

3 July – Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.

10 July – Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.

21 July — Battersea Bridge over the River Thames opens in London.

8 September — The future Edward VII becomes involved in the Royal Baccarat Scandal.

25 September - Congress establishes Yosemite National Park (California)

September — Southampton Dock Strike.

22 October — Colony of Western Australia granted self-governing status.

4 November - Great Britain proclaims Zanzibar as a protectorate

4 November — London's City & South London Railway, the first deep-level underground railway in the world, opens. It runs a distance of 5.1 km (3.2 mi) between the City of London and Stockwell.

4 November - Prince of Wales opens first underground station at Stockwell, South London

17 November — Captain Willy O'Shea divorces his wife, Kitty, for adultery; Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, is named as co-respondent.

23 November - King William III of the Netherlands dies (b. 1817) without a male heir and a special law passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to inherit.

November — Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, moves to a building on London's Victoria Embankment, as New Scotland Yard.

November - Financial panic of 1890 precipitated by the need to guarantee Barings Bank's risky debts in Argentina.

18 December — British East Africa Company takes control of Uganda.

18 December — First electric underground public railway line opens to public: City & South London Railway between King William St. & Stockwell).

29 December – Wounded Knee Massacre.

31 December - Ellis Island (NYC) opens as a US immigration depot

The folding carton box is invented by Robert Gair.

Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough.

Ireland to Scotland railway tunnel proposed by Luke Livingston Macassey.

Francis Galton announces a statistical demonstration of the uniqueness and classifiability of individual human fingerprints.

First comic book, Comic Cuts.

1891

29 January - Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch. (May not be true in 1889v2)

7 February - Great Blizzard of 1891 begins in England

9–12 March – The Great Blizzard of 1891 in the south and west of England leads to extensive snow drifts and powerful storms off the south coast, with 14 ships sunk and approximately 220 deaths attributed to the weather conditions.

10 March - Almon Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas, patents the strowger switch, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit switching.

15 March – Sir Joseph Bazalgette, English civil engineer (born 1819)

18 March – Official opening of the London-Paris telephone system.

March - Deptford East Power Station opens

1 April – The London–Paris telephone system is opened to the general public.

5 April – Census in the United Kingdom.

6 May - Conductors on London General Omnibus Company go on strike

11 May - The Otsu Scandal: While visiting Japan, Prince Nicholas (later Tsar Nicholas II) survives an assassination attempt

May - Ireland to Scotland railway tunnel surveys and railway approaches started.

14 July - John T Smith patents corkboard.

5 August - 1st travelers checks issued (American Express)

17 August - Electric self-starter for automobile patented.

10 November - Granville T Woods patents electric railway.

29 December - Edison patents "transmission of signals electrically" (radio)

Completion of New Scotland Yard by Norman Shaw.

Founding of the Romanes Lectures at Oxford University by George Romanes.

Kelmscott Press founded by William Morris.

Education made free for every child in Britain.

Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome, “The Critic as Artist,” and “Soul of Man Under Socialism.”

Phillip Siddley-Monksham joins Wildewoode, Rute & Barrow as an Accounts Manager.

1892

3 January – J. R. R. Tolkien, professor and author of The Lord of the Rings (died 1973)

5 January - 1st successful auroral photograph made

14 January – Death of Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line to the throne. Next in line is his younger brother Prince George (later George V)

24 January - Battle of Mengo, Uganda: French missionaries attack British missionaries

1 February - Mrs William Astor invites 400 guests to a grand ball at her mansion thus beginning use of "400" to describe socially elite.

2 February - Bottle cap with cork seal patented by William Painter (Baltimore).

15 March - 1st escalator patented by inventor Jesse W Reno (NYC).

March - Abu Dhabi becomes a British protectorate.

12 April - George C Blickensderfer patents portable typewriter.

15 April - General Electric Company, forms & is incorporated in NY.

19 May - Charles Brady King invents pneumatic hammer

19 May – British troops defeat Ijebu infantry at the battle of Yemoja river, in modern-day Nigeria, using a maxim gun.

24 May – Prince George of Wales (later George V) becomes Duke of York

18 June - Macademia nuts 1st planted in Hawaii.

4 July - Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, so that year there were 367 days in this country, with two occurrences of Monday, July 4.

6 July - Dadabhai Naoroji elected as first Indian Member of Parliament in Britain.

8 July - St. John's, Newfoundland is devastated in the Great Fire of 1892.

11 July - US Patent Office says J W Swan, rather than Thomas Edison, invented the electric light carbon for the incandescent lamp

4 August - Queen Wilhelmina & Emma open Merwede Canal between Amsterdam and the Rhine

15 August - 4th & last British government of William Gladstoneforms

26 August – An underground explosion at Parc Slip Colliery, Aberkenfig, Glamorgan, kills 110.

8 November - Grover Cleveland (D) elected 24th US President

20 December - Phileas Fogg completes around world trip, according to Verne

Founding of The Westminster Gazette (absorbed by The Daily News in 1928).

Scottish universities admit women.

1893

1 January - Japan adopts the Gregorian calendar

2 January - Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.

17 January – The U.S. Marines intervene in Hawaii, resulting in overthrow of the government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii. (May not happen in1889v2)

1 February – Thomas Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey.

1 February - The EverDark party arrives at Jackal Mountain.

9 February - Canal builder De Lesseps & others sentenced to prison for fraud

10 February - Kraag Barza captured from High Martians.

23 February – Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine. (Could be earlier)

4 March - Grover Cleveland President of USA - 2nd term

10 March - Ivory Coast becomes French colony.

30 March - Thomas F Bayard becomes 1st US ambassador in Great Britain

22 April - Paul Kruger elected president of Transvaal for 3rd time

1 May – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, USA.

5 May – Panic of 1893: A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.

10 May - Opening of Imperial Institute/ Attack on British Royal Family

10 May – The United States Supreme Court legally declares the tomato to be a vegetable.

14 May - Victoria dies of wounds, Edward VII becomes King of Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India

15 May - Year of mourning declared for Court, 3 months full mourning for citizenry, +3 months 1/2 mourning after

20 May - Internment of Victoria at Frogmore

6 June – Wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck. (Wedding Postponed to December)

17 June – Gold is found in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

20 June – The Wengernalpbahn railway in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.

20 June - Lizzie Borden acquitted in murder of parents in New Bedford Mass

21 June - 1st Ferris wheel premieres at Chicago's Columbian Exposition

5 August - Ethership HMS Duke of York destroyed in Maars orbit by unknown ship

27 August – The Sea Islands hurricane hits Savannah, Charleston, and the Sea Islands, killing 1,000–2,000.

1 September – William Ewart Gladstone's Government of Ireland Bill 1893, intended to give Ireland self-government, is rejected by the British Parliament. (May change.)

7 September - Riots in Syrtus Major

21 September – Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.

30 October – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, closes.

20 November - Everdark party arrives London via Ethership 'Fetching Jackal' after quarantine in orbit.

11 December - Ireland to Scotland railway link opens

12 December - Wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck.

17 December - Double Alliance - France and Russia.

Undated Events

Siam concedes Laos to France.

Panic of 1893 - America and Europe. Multiple bank failures

Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance.

George Egerton’s Keynotes.

Arthur Wing Pinero’s Second Mrs. Tanqueray, starring Mrs. Patrick Campbell.

Aubrey Beardsley’s Le Morte Darthur.

Wilde’s Salome banned in London (staged in Paris in 1896).

New Zealand becomes first country to give women the right to vote.

1894

1 January - Manchester Ship Canal in England opens to traffic.

1 February –

1 March -

1 April -

1 May –

1 June –

30 June - The Prince of Wales officially opens the Tower Bridge in London, England.

1 July –

1 August –

1 September –

1 October –

1 November –

1 December –

Undated Events

Milton S. Hershey establishes the Hershey Chocolate Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.